Abstract
Atmospheric pollution by fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) is a serious concern in China for its danger to human health and to the environment. As such, it has become, since 2013, the target of governmental emission reduction policies. Subsequently, PM2.5 concentrations in China have decreased rapidly, but surface O3 concentration is still measurably increasing in most regions of China. Indeed, although emission reduction policies influence O3 chemical production and loss processes by their impact on O3 precursor concentrations, O3 pollution is also affected by meteorological factors. In this study, we analyzed the spatial distribution and temporal variations of surface solar radiation and aerosol extinction to explain the recent increase in surface O3 concentration. Our results confirmed a marked PM2.5 concentration decrease between 2015 and 2019, especially in northern China, and a simultaneous O3 concentration increase. Surface solar radiation showed geographically consistent increases, likely caused by the decreasing PM2.5 concentrations and the resulting lower aerosol optical thickness. The surface solar radiation increasing enhanced photochemical O3 production. We also investigated cloud cover distribution and trends. It demonstrated that the surface solar radiation intensity increase in northern China was caused by decreasing aerosol concentrations, not by cloud cover differences. Moreover, most emission reduction policies focus on sulfur and nitrogen oxides, less on other important O3 precursors, such as the non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs). The emission of O3 precursors has not reached the level of suppressing O3 pollution. Stricter emission reduction policies are, therefore, required to mitigate O3 pollution.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 41921005 and 42105104).
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Lihua Zhou: investigation, conceptualization, methodology, software, data curation, writing — original draft preparation. Lei Sun: software and review. Yong Luo: funding acquisition, methodology. Xin Xia, Lei Huang, and Zhouyi Liao: review and editing. Xiaohui Yan: project administration.
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Zhou, L., Sun, L., Luo, Y. et al. Air pollutant concentration trends in China: correlations between solar radiation, PM2.5, and O3. Air Qual Atmos Health 16, 1721–1735 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-023-01368-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-023-01368-3