Climate Monitoring and Formation Mechanism of Smog Pollution in China

Abstract

Based on environment monitoring data from China Meteorological Administration and Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China, data of atmosphere probing and re-analysis data of NCAR/NCEP, and researches on sources of smog pollution and on smog composition analysis, the paper demonstrates characteristics of China's smog climate and climate change as well as the progress made in climate monitoring in China, explores the constituents of smog aerosol and its pollution sources, analyzes the air quality difference between metropolises and their adjacent small-sized cities and towns, and dissects the formation mechanism behind the recent three major smog pollution incidents from the perspective of air pollution dynamics. The findings of this study include: days with smog in eastern China are on rapid rise especially in 2013; smog pollution in metropolises are significantly much severer than that in adjacent small-sized cities and towns; and the rising smog pollution in China are mainly from motor vehicle exhaust, industrial emission, coal consumption among other factors. Based on the findings above, the study proposes combined principles and measures to eliminate smog pollution by integrating mitigation, joint prevention, and control. Causes of local variations of smog aerosol concentration fall into two categories: internal factors (pollution sources) and external ones (meteorological conditions). Among all external factors, horizontal convey of particulates is a major factor, and persistent smog pollution incidents are closely related to the vertical structure of static and stable atmosphere, wet deposition, and zones with low average wind speed.