This study investigates aerosol-precipitation characteristics of urban clusters across different climatic areas in China: enhanced aerosol loading reduces regional precipitation disparities, most in spring & summer. Precipitation shows stronger regional than seasonal variability, with convective varying more than stratiform precipitation. Northern city precipitation is dominated by dust aerosols; coastal areas by sea salt. Moreover, dynamic & thermal impacts on their microphysics are distinct.

Estimating surface radiation in the Arctic is difficult because cloud conditions are not well captured. We used an advanced learning-based method and a more accurate cloud dataset to correct radiation estimates that are biased by cloud fraction underestimation. The improved results greatly reduce long-standing errors and provide a new and more reliable dataset. This helps researchers better understand Arctic climate change and energy balance.

Nighttime rainfall often links to low-level jets (LLJs), but we lack clarity on nationwide LLJ features. We here used a nationwide radar wind profiler network to study LLJ changes 2 hours before rainfall, covering China’s 2023–2024 rainy seasons. 56% nighttime rainfall had LLJs. The LLJs-associated heavy rain needed a rapid adjustment of LLJs’ vertical structure, especially a significant intensification within 30 minutes preceding rain. This shows the importance of LLJ in nowcasting rainfall.

We studied how strong wind disturbances caused by mountains can disturb the polar vortex, a large pool of cold air high above the North Pole. Using simulations, we boosted these wind disturbances over the Himalayas, North America, and East Asia. We found they can shift, weaken, and mix the vortex in different ways depending on the region. This helps explain how mountains influence the upper atmosphere and improve forecasts of extreme cold weather at the surface.

Air pollution in China has shifted from particles to ozone as a main concern in warm-seasons. We combined ten years of observations with model simulations to explore how ozone and secondary particles change in the Guanzhong Basin. We find that chemical drivers shift during the season, leading to different pollution responses. These insights point to targeted, season-specific strategies that can improve air quality more effectively.

The annual aerosol cycle over Mindelo, Cabo Verde, was characterized using lidar and sun photometer measurements between July 2021 and August 2023. The observations were used to define and characterize the aerosol-related seasons at this location. These are the dust season (June–September), when thick layers of Saharan dust are transported over Mindelo, and the mixing season (November–March), when this dust is mixed with smoke from the African continent. April, May, and October were defined as transition months.

Gaseous sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) is a key precursor in atmospheric cluster formation. Measurement challenges hinder its widespread observation. We conducted a three-year continuous measurement of H₂SO₄ in urban Beijing during 2019–2021, characterize its interannual, seasonal, and diurnal variations, and derives proxies to estimate its concentration. These proxies and parameters therein could be applicable at diverse sites and thus provide H₂SO₄ concentration covering many regions worldwide.

Fog affects human activities and regional climate, yet our understanding of it remains limited. Based on 27 fog events in Nanjing, this study shows that droplet size distributions evolve among unimodal, bimodal, and trimodal during the fog lifecycle. A new segmented fitting significantly improves the estimation of key microphysical and radiative parameters. These results improve our understanding of fog microphysics and droplet size distribution parameterizations in weather and climate models.

Macrophysical and microphysical properties of clouds and their evolution during the initial phase of marine cold air outbreaks in the Arctic are studied with a focus on cloud thermodynamic phase partitioning and phase transitions. To this end, high-resolution quasi-Lagrangian observations of the hyperspectral and polarized imaging system specMACS during the HALO-(AC)³ campaign are combined with backward trajectories. Six cold air outbreaks with varying strengths are analyzed and compared.

We used a regional atmospheric transport model to simulate carbon dioxide mole fractions over Western Europe. The results show the importance of anthropogenic emission configurations, particularly near large emission sources, as well as the necessity of improving biogenic flux simulations. These findings contribute to enhancing the accuracy of carbon dioxide modeling and carbon budget inversions.

We develop an approach to determine the uncertainty in reactions involved in the breakdown of dimethyl sulfide and methanethiol in the atmosphere, and run simulations spanning temperate, tropical, and polar conditions to quantify the impacts of this uncertainty on the concentration of these sulfur species and their products. We extend this analysis to identify key reactions that drive the uncertainty and highlight areas for further experimental and theoretical work.

Anhydro-saccharides are key organic markers for biomass burning, but their decay rates and driving factors in real ambient environments remain unclear. This study conducted an online field measurement of PM₂.₅-bound saccharides in three eastern Chinese cities. Daytime levoglucosan decay rates were calculated, and the driving factors were investigated using a machine learning model. Findings of this study offers a strong scientific basis to support air pollution management.

This research presents a sensor-free method to transform UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) into precise wind measurement platforms by calibrating their flight dynamics against wind. The approach quantifies how wind tilts the aircraft, enabling accurate estimation of wind speed and direction without additional sensors. This provides a low-cost, high-resolution monitoring of complex wind patterns, with applications in pollution tracking, air quality modeling, and operational safety in the emerging low-altitude economy.

The space industry is growing rapidly, but its environmental effects remain uncertain. We used a global chemistry-climate model to study how chlorine released by rocket launches could affect the ozone layer and its recovery from past depletion. Even with large growth in launches, global ozone loss remains small but could locally slow the healing of the ozone layer. These findings highlight the need to consider rocket emissions in future environmental policies.

This study examines the potential impact of different greenhouse gases to vertical mixing by clear air turbulence in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere . We found that ozone is most sensitive to vertical mixing and could lead to cooling at the top of the atmosphere by -0.2 W/m2. We also found that the vertical mixing by clear air turbulence could lead to changes in atmospheric chemistry including changing the methane lifetime and the ozone sensitivity.

This study evaluates how well an Arctic-specific model can capture two key cloud states that control how the region traps surface radiation. The model reproduces these states better than others but still produces too many thick, low clouds. With further improvements, it could offer valuable insight into how Arctic cloud behavior and surface heat balance may evolve under future climate change.

This study evaluates the uncertainties of CMIP6 models in simulating surface O₃ over China, using the Tracking Air Pollution in China (TAP) dataset under varying temperature, cloud cover, land-surface types, and pollutant levels. Historical changes are analyzed to provide context, while future O₃ projections are assessed under different SSPs. Comparison of CMIP6 models under SSP3-7.0 highlights sources of inter-model differences, providing insights for O₃ prediction and control in China.

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) phenomenology across nine observatories in diverse environments. We evaluate CCN prediction methods based on aerosol chemical composition and optical properties, including empirical and machine learning approaches. While simplified chemical schemes provide first-order estimates, incorporating optical data substantially improves CCN prediction accuracy in regions without direct measurements.

The downward impact of sudden stratospheric warming events (SSWs) on the troposphere is still controversial. We further classify downward-propagating SSWs (DWs) into three types that are followed by cold surges over Eurasia (EA), over North America (NA), and over both (BOTH), respectively. This study reveals the diversity of the DWs and distinguishes their potential impact on both continents in the Northern Hemisphere.

We used observations of water vapour to estimate vertical transport rates in the tropical stratosphere for 1995-2020 and analyze stratospheric variability. Our results find good agreement between our observation-based estimates and reanalysis upwelling and reveal that the variability is mainly driven by the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) with a clear signal in the upwelling time series coinciding with the recent QBO disruptions of 2015/16 and 2019/20.

Mineral dust impacts climate and air quality, varying by composition. This study examined its effects on radiation and pollution during a North China dust storm using WRF-CHIMERE and three dust atlases. Bulk dust had a shortwave radiative forcing of -5.72 W/m², while mineral-specific effects increased it by +0.10 W/m². Aerosol-radiation interactions raised PM₁₀ to 1189.48 μg/m³. Accurate mineral data is essential for improving dust-related climate and air quality simulations.

We used satellite data to track air pollution in over 11,000 cities worldwide from 2019 to 2024. Nitrogen dioxide levels fell in many cities in Asia, Europe, and North America, but rose in parts of Africa and the Middle East. We found signs of nitrogen dioxide changes from fossil fuel use, conflict and mining operations. These findings show how satellites can help track pollution and highlight where official data on emissions may be wrong or incomplete.

Aerosols affect clouds and climate. However, current climate models still struggle to simulate them accurately. We used aircraft data from a global mission to evaluate how well the UK Earth System Model represents aerosols and their precursors. Our results show that the model misses key formation processes in clean ocean regions, suggesting that future improvements should focus on better representing how aerosols form naturally in the atmosphere.

Long-term observational data indicate that under sufficient moisture conditions, dust aerosols can amplify extreme precipitation (EP) in the arid Tarim Basin. Dust aerosols contribute an average of 6.6 % to EP, primarily through their role as efficient ice nuclei that enhance precipitation processes. Projections indicate that such dust-related extreme precipitation events will remain frequent throughout this century, highlighting the crucial role of dust aerosols in the regional water cycle.

This study investigates the formation of hydroxymethyl hydroperoxide (HMHP) through methanesulfonic acid (MSA)-catalyzed hydrolysis of CH₂OO in the gas phase and at the air-water interface. HMHP forms rapidly and stably in both environments. Further analysis shows that HMHP enhances the stability of MSA-methylamine (MA) clusters and highlights HMHP's key role in MSA-MA-HMHP nucleation, especially in urban and forested regions.