Annual Variation of Global Air Pollution: Initial Aerosol Effect or Climate Interaction?

Huihui Feng,Ying Ding,Chuanfeng Zhao,Bin Zou

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2021.790357

Huihui Feng, Ying Ding + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.790357

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Abstract

The aerosol at the previous time (initial aerosol) and climate conditions control the next step annual variation of global air pollution through the complex aerosol-climate interaction. However, the individual influences remain unclear, leaving a great gap for understanding the mechanism of air pollution evolution and supporting the environment management. We estimate the annual variation using statistical methods and satellite observations at global scale from 2001 to 2016 Results show that significant variation of annual aerosol occurs over 13.6% of land areas, in which a perturbation of aerosol may cause 0.58 ± 0.45 times change in the next phase. Initial aerosol and climate influences contribute 48.4–51.6% of the total variation, respectively. Specifically, the influences of precipitation, air temperature and surface temperature represent 0.1, 18.3 and 33.2% of the total variation. Physically, the observed variation is strongly correlated with fine mode aerosols, radiative scattering and warm/hot summers in temperate and cold zones. The environmental management therefore should implement cause-oriented strategies for emission control or climatic adaption.

Highlights

Aerosol variation in response to a perturbation is one of the key issues in studies on global climate and environmental changes (Carslaw et al, 2010; Andreae and Rosenfeld, 2008; Gettelman et al, 2016; Rosenfeld et al, 2014)
The factors should be excluded from the model.the influences of initial aerosol and climate are firstly identified by whether the variables enter the multiple linear regression (MLR) model, while the sign and magnitude are estimated by measuring the response of aerosol change to the initial perturbation
Significant aerosol variation is more likely to be observed at the regional scale

Summary

Introduction

Aerosol variation in response to a perturbation is one of the key issues in studies on global climate and environmental changes (Carslaw et al, 2010; Andreae and Rosenfeld, 2008; Gettelman et al, 2016; Rosenfeld et al, 2014). It is necessary to clarify the mechanism of aerosol variation for climate predictions and environmental management (Scott et al, 2017). The current results are still controversial, and the contributions of initial aerosol and climate condition remain unclear (Bonan and Doney, 2018; Carslaw et al, 2013). Numerous models have been used to evaluate the impacts and responses of aerosols by comparing scenario predictions with and without the potential driving factors, unavoidable uncertainties originate from the initial conditions, model

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