Impacts of Extreme Air Pollution Meteorology on Air Quality in China

Abstract

Extreme air pollution meteorological events (EAPMEs), such as atmospheric stagnation (AS), heat wave (HW), and temperature inversion, significantly affect regional air quality. In the present study, considerably increased EAPME frequency with clear spatial variations is identified in China from 1960 to 2019. Strong air quality sensitivities to EAPMEs are identified by combing air quality and meteorological observations. We found that HW greatly affects ozone concentration and may enhance the generation of fine particles. AS showed a noticeable but opposite impact on fine particle pollution between northern and southern China owing to the wintertime heating policy. EAPMEs may increase the probability of air pollution for pollution levels greater than 2. For example, the synthetic effects of multiple EAPMEs could increase the probability of summer ozone and winter fine particle pollution in China by factors of up to 5 and 2, respectively. Based on such information, more attention may be needed on the collaborative prediction of extreme meteorological events and air pollution episodes.

The contribution of new particle formation and subsequent growth to haze formation

“…Previous studies have demonstrated that the formation of haze in Chinese megacities is associated with a complex interplay between emissions, transportation, meteorological conditions and atmospheric chemistry. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] In Beijing, atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) tends to precede the formation of haze in winter. 5,15 The contribution of NPF and subsequent gas-to-particle conversion (GTP) associated with these newly formed particles to the increased PM 2.5 mass concentrations during the haze formation has, however, remained difficult to quantify.…”

Co‐Occurrence of Surface O3, PM2.5 Pollution, and Tropical Cyclones in China

“…Daily mean PM 2.5 concentration and daily maximum 8-hr mean O 3 (hereafter "ozone8") from more than 367 cities and hourly PM 2.5 and O 3 concentration from more than 2000 observational sites in the period 2014-2020 were continuously collected from the China National Environmental Monitoring Center (shown in Figure 1a, (Yang & Shao, 2021)). Each city usually has 3-30 monitoring sites based on city size.…”

“…org.cn/en/zjljsjj_sm.html (Lu et al, 2021) [Dataset]). The air quality data from the China National Environmental Monitoring Centre are included in Yang and Shao (2021) and can be accessed from https://openaq.org/%23/countries. The global reanalysis data ERA5 are available in ECMWF at https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/ (Hersbach et al, 2020) [Dataset].…”

“…Beside general meteorological factors such as temperature and wind speed, extremely unfavorable meteorological conditions (EUMCs) could further enhance the occurrence frequency and level of air pollution. Yang and Shao (2021) examined the impacts of three EUMCs (heat wave, temperature inversion, and atmospheric stagnation) on the occurrence frequency and level of O 3 and PM 2.5 pollution in China and found O 3 and PM 2.5 concentrations increased significantly in response to these EUMCs. Shao et al (2021) further studied the impacts of these EUMCs on the compositional characteristics of PM 2.5 and found that EUMCs could notably change the proportions of different components in PM 2.5 .…”

A Statistical Procedure for Analyzing the Behavior of Air Pollutants during Temperature Extreme Events: The Case Study of Emilia-Romagna Region (Northern Italy)

“…In the last years, the scientific research linked to human health and wellbeing of populations in urban and industrialized areas mainly focused on two issues: climate change and air quality [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Climate change affects human wellbeing through many related events: increased frequency and intensity of heat waves and cold waves, changing precipitation intensity, and increased devastating weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts, cold-related mortality, and heat-related mortality [11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Observed climate trends show that temperatures are increasing, particularly extreme temperatures, with heat waves (HWs) becoming more frequent, more intense, and longer lasting [3,[17][18][19][20].…”