Abstract
Surface solar radiation (SSR) is the main factor affecting the earth’s climate and environment and its variations and the reason for these variations are an important part of climate change research. In this research, we investigated the long-term variations of SSR during 1984–2016 and the quantitative influences of atmospheric aerosols, anthropogenic emissions, and meteorological conditions on SSR over China’s mainland. The results show the following: (1) The annual average SSR values had a decline trend at a rate of −0.371 Wm−2 yr−1 from 1984 to 2016 over China. (2) The aerosol optical depth (AOD) plays the main role in inducing variations in SSR over China, with r values of −0.75. Moreover, there are marked regional differences in the influence of anthropogenic emissions and meteorological conditions on SSR trends. (3) From a regional perspective, AOD is the main influencing factor on SSR in northeast China (NEC), Yunnan Plateau and surrounding regions (YPS), North China (NC), and Loess Plateau (LP), with r values of −0.65, −0.60, −0.89, and −0.50, respectively. However, the main driving factors for SSR in northwest China (NWC) are “in cloud optical thickness of all clouds” (TAUTOT) (−0.26) and black carbon (BC) anthropogenic emissions (−0.21). TAUTOT (−0.39) and total precipitable water vapor (TQV) (−0.29) are the main influencing factors of SSR in the middle-lower Yangtze Plain (MYP). The main factors that influence SSR in southern China (SC) are surface pressure (PS) (−0.66) and AOD (−0.43). This research provides insights in understanding the variations of SSR and its relationships with anthropogenic conditions and meteorological factors.
Highlights
Solar radiation incident at the earth’s surface is the most important energy source for the environment, and has profound influences on the physical and biochemical processes including water cycle, climate change and plant photosynthesis [1]
The highest annual average values of surface solar radiation (SSR) occurs in Tibet Plateau (TP), because of the weak radiation dumping processes there
We found that some regions showed a decreasing trend; only Loess Plateau (LP), SBS, southern China (SC), and middle-lower Yangtze Plain (MYP) showed an increasing trend in 2013–2016
Summary
Solar radiation incident at the earth’s surface is the most important energy source for the environment, and has profound influences on the physical and biochemical processes including water cycle, climate change and plant photosynthesis [1]. When solar radiation passes through the atmosphere, it undergoes radiation damping processes affected by geographical factors (latitude, longitude, and elevation, etc.), astronomical factors (solar zenith angle, etc.), atmospheric composition (aerosols, water vapor, ozone, etc.) [2,3], and human activities (anthropogenic emissions) between the atmosphere and the earth’s surface. An accurate and clear analysis of the spatial and temporal variations and driving factors of surface solar radiation (SSR) is vital to the optimized utilization of the solar energy resource. These results revealed that a significant decadal transition on SSR have been observed around the world [7], with a decreased trend (“solar dimming”) since the
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