Effects of Air Pollution on Sunshine Duration Trends in Typical Chinese Cities

Abstract

Long-term trends in sunshine duration in Chinese cities have been closely linked to factors caused by air pollution. To understand this impact on sunshine duration (SD), surface solar radiation from 1981 to 2020, annual PM2.5 concentration from 2012 to 2020 and air pollution index (API) data from 2013 to 2020 collected in ten representative cities in China were investigated, and the long-term relationship of SD with diffuse fraction (DF), aerosol option depth (AOD), annual PM2.5 concentration and API were analyzed. The results indicated that trends in SD varied across cities. SD decreased in seven of the ten selected cities’ stations in the past 40 years, and the annual mean SD decreased from −0.03 h d−1 per decade to −0.36 h d−1 per decade—particularly in the Beijing North China Plain, Shanghai and Wuhan stations in the Yangtze River delta, where the trend coefficients were lower than −0.5. Conversely, increases in varying degrees of SD were found in Kunming (0.38 h d−1 per decade), Guangzhou and Shenyang in Southwest, South and Northeast China, respectively—with the biggest trend coefficient of 0.54 in Kunming. In addition to the SD variation, the DF in the ten city stations increased continuously from 1981 to 2010 and then declined after 2010, which is closely related to decreases in the annual PM2.5 concentration after 2012. The correlation coefficients between DF and SD ranged from −0.04 to −0.62, validating their negative relationship and the slight increasing trend in SD in recent ten years. The annual averages for SD and the DF plateaued in the 2010s due to the stringent pollution controls established by the Chinese government after 2010. Furthermore, the correlation coefficients between SD and the API ranged from −0.12 to −0.58, demonstrating a negative relationship between SD and the API.