Rapid reappearance of air pollution after cold air outbreaks in northern and eastern China

Liu, Qian; Chen, Guixing; Sheng, Lifang; Iwasaki, Toshiki

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-13371-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-13371-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-13371-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 20

Research article

|

18 Oct 2022

Research article |

| 18 Oct 2022

Rapid reappearance of air pollution after cold air outbreaks in northern and eastern China

Qian Liu, Guixing Chen, Lifang Sheng, and Toshiki Iwasaki

Data sets

Japanese 55-year reanalysis Japan Meteorological Agency https://jra.kishou.go.jp/JRA-55

Air quality index (AQI) Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People Republic of China https://air.cnemc.cn:18007/

Radio sounding data University of Wyoming http://www.weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

Short summary

Air pollution can be cleaned up quickly by a cold air outbreak (CAO) but reappears after a CAO. By quantifying the CAO properties, we find the coldness and depth of the cold air mass are key factors affecting the rapid (slow) reappearance of air pollution through modulating the atmospheric boundary layer height and stability. We also find that the spatial pattern of CAO in high-latitude Eurasia a few days ahead can be recognized as a precursor for the reappearance of air pollution.