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Change in the dominant atmosphere–ocean systems contributing to spring haze pollution over North China Plain around the mid-1990s

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Abstract

This study reveals that the dominant atmosphere–ocean systems modulating interannual variation of springtime haze pollution (HP) over the North China Plain (NC) experienced a significant interdecadal change around the mid-1990s. Before the mid-1990s, interannual variation of the spring HP over NC has a close relation with the spring North Pacific Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, and sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropical Northern Atlantic and the tropical Indian Ocean. These atmosphere–ocean systems remotely contributed to the formation of atmospheric anomalies over Northeast Asia via atmospheric teleconnection, which further led to the HP variation over NC via modulating low-level wind speed, low-level relative humidity, and boundary layer height. By contrast, after the mid-1990s, interannual variation of the spring HP over NC is related to a zonally propagating atmospheric wave train over mid-high latitudes of Eurasia. This zonally propagated Eurasian atmospheric wave train, partly related to SST anomalies in the tropical eastern Pacific, caused atmospheric anomalies over Northeast Asia, which in turn modulated spring HP variation over NC. Changes in the impact of the dominant atmosphere–ocean systems on the spring HP variation over NC may be partly related to changes in the background mean circulation.

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Data availability

The NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data were obtained from https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html.

The NAO index was obtained from https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/teledoc/nao.shtml.

The SST data were obtained from https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html.

The observational data from the 748 meteorological stations over China were obtained from http://www.nmic.cn/.

Code availability

All codes used in this study are available from the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was supported jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 42175039, 41721004, and 41961144025) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences (QYZDY-SSW-DQC024).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Shangfeng Chen & Wen Chen

  2. State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jianping Guo

  3. Institute of Urban Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

    Linye Song

  4. National Meteorological Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

    Wei Zhao

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  1. Shangfeng Chen
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  2. Wen Chen
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  3. Jianping Guo
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Contributions

S.F. Chen designed the research, performed the analysis and wrote the original manuscript. W. Chen, J.P. Guo, L.Y. Song, and W. Zhao commented and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shangfeng Chen.

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Chen, S., Chen, W., Guo, J. et al. Change in the dominant atmosphere–ocean systems contributing to spring haze pollution over North China Plain around the mid-1990s. Theor Appl Climatol 150, 1097–1110 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04214-1

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