Substantial contribution of anthropogenic air pollution to catastrophic floods in Southwest China

Jiwen Fan*, Daniel Rosenfeld, Yan Yang, Chun Zhao, L. Ruby Leung, Zhanqing Li

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

170 Scopus citations

Abstract

Extreme weather events have become more frequent and are likely linked to increases in greenhouse gases and aerosols, which alter the Earth's radiative balance and cloud processes. On 8-9 July 2013, a catastrophic flood devastated the mountainous area to the northwest of the Sichuan Basin. Atmospheric simulations at a convection-permitting scale with aerosols and chemistry included show that heavy air pollution trapped in the basin significantly enhances the rainfall intensity over the mountainous areas through "aerosol-enhanced conditional instability." That is, aerosols suppress convection by absorbing solar radiation and increasing atmospheric stability in the basin during daytime. This allows excess moist air to be transported to the mountainous areas and orographically lifted, generating strong convection and extremely heavy precipitation at night. We show that reducing pollution in the Sichuan Basin can effectively mitigate floods. It is suggested that coupling aerosol with meteorology can be crucial to improve weather forecast in polluted regions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6066-6075
Number of pages10
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume42
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - 28 Jul 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

  • aerosol impacts
  • black carbon
  • extreme weather
  • flood
  • pollution

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