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A Perspective on Global Dimming and Brightening Worldwide and in China

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  • Published: 15 April 2025
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A Perspective on Global Dimming and Brightening Worldwide and in China
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  • Martin Wild1,
  • Yawen Wang2,
  • Kaicun Wang3 &
  • …
  • Su Yang4 

  • 493 Accesses

  • 101 Altmetric

  • 14 Mentions

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Abstract

Worldwide radiation records suggest that the amount of sunlight received at the Earth’s surface (surface solar radiation, SSR) has not been stable over the years, but underwent significant decadal variations, popularly also known as “global dimming and brightening”. These variations have been particularly evident in China, where the SSR substantially declined from the 1960s to the 1990s (dimming), with indications for a trend reversal in the 2000s and a slight recovery (brightening) in recent years. This perspective/review paper will discuss recent updates and remaining challenges regarding our knowledge of the magnitudes, causes, and implications of these variations in SSR worldwide, with a particular emphasis on the developments in China.

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Acknowledgements

This solicited paper emerged from a presentation held by Martin Wild at the International Radiation Symposium (IRS 2024) taking place in Hangzhou in June 2024. We would like to thank Dr. Lei BI for the excellent organization of this conference. Global dimming and brightening research at ETH Zurich has been supported by a sequence of Swiss National Science Foundation Grants (Grant Nos. 200021_135395, 200020_159938, 200020_188601) and through funding from the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss within the framework of GCOS Switzerland in support of the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) hosted at ETH Zurich.

Funding

Funding note: Open access funding provided by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Martin Wild

  2. Frontier Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System (FDOMES) and Physical Oceanography Laboratory, College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

    Yawen Wang

  3. Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Kaicun Wang

  4. National Meteorological Information Centre, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

    Su Yang

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  1. Martin Wild
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Correspondence to Martin Wild.

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This paper is a contribution to the special issue on the International Radiation Symposium (IRS) 2024.

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Wild, M., Wang, Y., Wang, K. et al. A Perspective on Global Dimming and Brightening Worldwide and in China. Adv. Atmos. Sci. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-025-4534-2

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  • Received: 17 December 2024

  • Revised: 06 February 2025

  • Accepted: 18 February 2025

  • Published: 15 April 2025

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-025-4534-2

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Key words

  • global dimming and brightening
  • surface solar radiation
  • aerosols
  • air pollution
  • climate change
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