Projected changes in haze pollution potential in China: an ensemble of regional climate model simulations
Based on the dynamic downscaling by the regional climate model RegCM4 from three CMIP5 global models under the historical and the RCP4.5 simulations, this article evaluated the performance of the RegCM4 downscaling simulations on the air environment carrying capacity (AEC) and weak ventilation d...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2017-08-01
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| Series: | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
| Online Access: | https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/10109/2017/acp-17-10109-2017.pdf |
| Summary: | Based on the dynamic downscaling by the regional climate
model RegCM4 from three CMIP5 global models under the historical and the
RCP4.5 simulations, this article evaluated the performance of the RegCM4
downscaling simulations on the air environment carrying capacity (AEC) and
weak ventilation days (WVDs) in China, which are applied to measure haze
pollution potential. Their changes during the middle and the end of the 21st
century were also projected. The evaluations show that the RegCM4
downscaling simulations can generally capture the observed features of the
AEC and WVD distributions over the period 1986–2005. The projections
indicate that the annual AEC tends to decrease and the annual WVDs tend to
increase over almost the whole country except central China, concurrent with
greater change by the late 21st century than by the middle of
the 21st century. It suggests that annual haze pollution potential would be
enlarged under the RCP4.5 scenario compared to the present. For seasonal
change in the four main economic zones of China, it is projected
consistently that there would be a higher probability of haze pollution risk
over the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) region and the Yangtze River Delta
(YRD) region in winter and over the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in spring
and summer in the context of the warming scenario. Over Northeast China
(NEC), future climate change might reduce the AEC or increase the WVDs
throughout the whole year, which favours the occurrence of haze pollution and
thus the haze pollution risk would be aggravated. The relative contribution of
different components related to the AEC change further indicates that
changes in the boundary layer depth and the wind speed play leading
roles in the AEC change over the BTH and NEC regions. In addition to those
two factors, the precipitation change also exerts important impacts on the
AEC change over the YRD and PRD zones. |
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| ISSN: | 1680-7316 1680-7324 |