Abstract
Abstract. The influence of air pollutants, especially aerosols, on regional and global climate has been widely investigated, but only a very limited number of studies report their impacts on everyday weather. In this work, we present for the first time direct (observational) evidence of a clear effect of how a mixed atmospheric pollution changes the weather with a substantial modification in the air temperature and rainfall. By using comprehensive measurements in Nanjing, China, we found that mixed agricultural burning plumes with fossil fuel combustion pollution resulted in a decrease in the solar radiation intensity by more than 70%, a decrease in the sensible heat by more than 85%, a temperature drop by almost 10 K, and a change in rainfall during both daytime and nighttime. Our results show clear air pollution–weather interactions, and quantify how air pollution affects weather via air pollution–boundary layer dynamics and aerosol–radiation–cloud feedbacks. This study highlights cross-disciplinary needs to investigate the environmental, weather and climate impacts of the mixed biomass burning and fossil fuel combustion sources in East China.
Highlights
Air pollution and weather forecast are traditionally considered as two separate topics of interest in the field of atmospheric science
We report an outstanding case observed in western Yangtze River delta (YRD) of East China during the intensive biomass burning (BB) period in June 2012
Based on comprehensive field measurement data, we explore the important connections between the mixed air pollution and synoptic weather in this region by showing a significant weather modification and failure in the prediction of air temperature and rainfall by the state-of-the-art numerical models during a heavy episode of extremely high concentration of particulate matter due to agricultural burning and fossil fuel (FF) combustion
Summary
Air pollution and weather forecast are traditionally considered as two separate topics of interest in the field of atmospheric science. Zhang et al, 2013; Xu et al, 2008; Ding et al, 2013) This area is one of the most important agricultural bases in China, and the agricultural activities, like intensive seasonally burning activities of agricultural straw, could cause mixed air pollution in this region (e.g., Wang et al, 2004; Yuan et al, 2010; Zhang et al, 2011; Ding et al, 2013). Based on comprehensive field measurement data, we explore the important connections between the mixed air pollution and synoptic weather in this region by showing a significant weather modification and failure in the prediction of air temperature and rainfall by the state-of-the-art numerical models during a heavy episode of extremely high concentration of particulate matter due to agricultural burning and FF combustion.
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