Previously, it was widely documented that an overall decrease in surface solar radiation occurred in China at least until 2005, in contrast to the general background of 'global brightening'. Increased anthropogenic aerosol emissions were speculated to be the source of the reduction. In this study, we extend the trend analysis to the most recent decade from 2005-2015 and find that surface solar radiation has shifted from 'dimming' to 'brightening' over East China, with the largest increase over the northeast and southeast parts. Meanwhile, satellite and ground observation both indicate a reduction in aerosol optical depth (AOD) during the same period, whereas no significant trends in cloud amount show up. Detailed analysis using co-located radiation and aerosol observation at the XiangHe station in North China suggests that both AOD and single scattering albedo (SSA) changes contribute to the radiation trends. AOD reduction contributes to the increase of direct solar radiation, also decreasing the diffuse radiation, while the increase of SSA serves to increase the diffuse fraction. Simple calculations using a radiative transfer model confirm that the two effects combined explain changes in the global solar radiation and its components effectively. Our results have implications for potential climate effects with the reduction of China's aerosol emissions, and the necessity to monitor aerosol composition in addition to its loading. 2005 Atmospheric radiative transfer modeling: a summary of the AER codes J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 91 233-44 Dubovik O, Smirnov A, Holben B N, King M D, Kaufman Y J, Eck T F and Slutsker I 2000 Accuracy assessments of aerosol optical properties retrieved from aerosol robotic network (AERONET) sun and sky radiance measurements J. Geophys. Res. 105 9791-806 De Foy B, Lu Z and Streets D G 2016 Satellite NO 2 retrievals suggest China has exceeded its NO x reduction goals from the twelfth five-year plan Sci. Rep 6 35912 Wavelength dependence of the optical depth of biomass burning, urban, and desert dust aerosols J. Geophys. Res. 104 31333-49 Fan X, Xia X and Chen H 2015 Comparison of column-integrated aerosol optical and physical properties in an urban and suburban site on the North China Plain Adv. Atmos. Sci. 32 477-86 Gilgen H and Ohmura A 1999 The global energy balance archive Bull. Am. Meteor. 80 831-50 Guan H, Schmid B, Bucholtz A and Bergstrom R 2010 Sensitivity of shortwave radiative flux density, forcing, and heating rate to the aerosol vertical profile J. Geophys. Res. 115 D06209 Harris I P D J, Jones P D, Osborn T J and Lister D H 2014 Updated high-resolution grids of monthly climatic observations-the CRU TS3. 10 dataset Int. J. Climatol. 34 623-42
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