Arctic sea ice, Eurasia snow, and extreme winter haze in China

Cryospheric forcing, that is, decreasing Arctic sea ice and increasing Eurasia snow, exacerbated extreme winter haze in China. The East China Plains (ECP) region experienced the worst haze pollution on record for January in 2013. We show that the unprecedented haze event is due to the extremely poor ventilation conditions, which had not been seen in the preceding three decades. Statistical analysis suggests that the extremely poor ventilation conditions are linked to Arctic sea ice loss in the preceding autumn and extensive boreal snowfall in the earlier winter. We identify the regional circulation mode that leads to extremely poor ventilation over the ECP region. Climate model simulations indicate that boreal cryospheric forcing enhances the regional circulation mode of poor ventilation in the ECP region and provides conducive conditions for extreme haze such as that of 2013. Consequently, extreme haze events in winter will likely occur at a higher frequency in China as a result of the changing boreal cryosphere, posing difficult challenges for winter haze mitigation but providing a strong incentive for greenhouse gas emission reduction.

[1]  K. Johnson.  An Update. , 1984, Journal of food protection.

[2]  D. Robinson,et al.  Global Snow Cover Monitoring: An Update , 1993 .

[3]  M. Green.  Air pollution and health , 1995 .

[4]  R. Reynolds,et al.  The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project , 1996, Renewable Energy.

[5]  K. Wolter,et al.  Measuring the strength of ENSO events: How does 1997/98 rank? , 1998 .

[6]  J. Wallace,et al.  The Arctic oscillation signature in the wintertime geopotential height and temperature fields , 1998 .

[7]  Michael E. Schuckers,et al.  Coping with Multicollinearity: An Example on Application of Principal Components Regression in Dendroecology , 2002 .

[8]  Elizabeth C. Kent,et al.  Global analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century , 2003 .

[9]  J. Jhun,et al.  A New East Asian Winter Monsoon Index and Associated Characteristics of the Winter Monsoon , 2004 .

[10]  Dara Entekhabi,et al.  Sensitivity of atmospheric response to modeled snow anomaly characteristics , 2004 .

[11]  E. Vermote,et al.  The MODIS Aerosol Algorithm, Products, and Validation , 2005 .

[12]  André Nel,et al.  ATMOSPHERE: Enhanced: Air Pollution-Related Illness: Effects of Particles , 2005 .

[13]  W. Briggs.  Statistical Methods in the Atmospheric Sciences , 2007 .

[14]  John P. Dawson,et al.  Sensitivity of PM 2.5 to climate in the Eastern US: a modeling case study , 2007 .

[15]  Yang Liu,et al.  Using aerosol optical thickness to predict ground-level PM2.5 concentrations in the St. Louis area: A comparison between MISR and MODIS , 2007 .

[16]  P. Kushner,et al.  Stratosphere-troposphere coupling and links with eurasian land surface variability , 2007 .

[17]  Zhun Yanfeng.  An Index of East Asian Winter Monsoon Applied to the Description of China's Mainland Winter Temperature Changes , 2008 .

[18]  朱艳峰.  An Index of East Asian Winter Monsoon Applied to the Description of China＇s Mainland Winter Temperature Changes , 2008 .

[19]  Josefino C. Comiso,et al.  Accelerated decline in the Arctic sea ice cover , 2008 .

[20]  S. Yamane,et al.  Influence of low Arctic sea‐ice minima on anomalously cold Eurasian winters , 2009 .

[21]  Rong-hui Huang,et al.  Interdecadal Variations of the East Asian Winter Monsoon and Their Association with Quasi-Stationary Planetary Wave Activity , 2009 .

[22]  R. Dickinson,et al.  Clear Sky Visibility Has Decreased over Land Globally from 1973 to 2007 , 2009, Science.

[23]  Yuhang Wang,et al.  East China plains: a "basin" of ozone pollution. , 2009, Environmental science & technology.

[24]  Chang‐Hoi Ho,et al.  Estimates of ground-level aerosol mass concentrations using a chemical transport model with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol observations over East Asia , 2009 .

[25]  Song Yang,et al.  A Dynamical Index for the East Asian Winter Monsoon , 2010 .

[26]  Zhanqing Li,et al.  Increase of wintertime fog in China: Potential impacts of weakening of the Eastern Asian monsoon circulation and increasing aerosol loading , 2010 .

[27]  Yang Liu,et al.  Recent changes in particulate air pollution over China observed from space and the ground: effectiveness of emission control. , 2010, Environmental science & technology.

[28]  Y. Q. Wang,et al.  Spatial distribution and interannual variation of surface PM 10 concentrations over eighty-six Chinese cities , 2010 .

[29]  J. Thepaut,et al.  The ERA‐Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system , 2011 .

[30]  Daniel J. Jacob,et al.  Meteorological modes of variability for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) air quality in the United States: implications for PM 2.5 sensitivity to climate change , 2011 .

[31]  Erik W. Kolstad,et al.  Observed and simulated precursors of stratospheric polar vortex anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere , 2011 .

[32]  Karl E. Taylor,et al.  An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design , 2012 .

[33]  J. Curry,et al.  Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[34]  Mathew Barlow,et al.  Arctic warming, increasing snow cover and widespread boreal winter cooling , 2012 .

[35]  X. Zhao,et al.  Analysis of a winter regional haze event and its formation mechanism in the North China Plain , 2013 .

[36]  J. Qin,et al.  Observed Coherent Trends of Surface and Upper-Air Wind Speed over China since 1960 , 2013 .

[37]  M. Kimoto,et al.  Robust Arctic sea-ice influence on the frequent Eurasian cold winters in past decades , 2014 .

[38]  J. Xin,et al.  Mechanism for the formation of the January 2013 heavy haze pollution episode over central and eastern China , 2014 .

[39]  Dara Entekhabi,et al.  Recent Arctic amplification and extreme mid-latitude weather , 2014 .

[40]  G. Magnusdottir,et al.  Response of the Wintertime Northern Hemisphere Atmospheric Circulation to Current and Projected Arctic Sea Ice Decline: A Numerical Study with CAM5 , 2014 .

[41]  A. Piazzalunga,et al.  High secondary aerosol contribution to particulate pollution during haze events in China , 2014, Nature.

[42]  Julienne Stroeve,et al.  Observed Arctic sea-ice loss directly follows anthropogenic CO2 emission , 2016, Science.