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. © Author(s) 2013. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
CITATION STYLE
Ding, A. J., Fu, C. B., Yang, X. Q., Sun, J. N., Petäjä, T., Kerminen, V. M., … Kulmala, M. (2013). Intense atmospheric pollution modifies weather: A case of mixed biomass burning with fossil fuel combustion pollution in eastern China. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 13(20), 10545–10554. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-10545-2013
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