Intensification of aerosol pollution associated with its feedback with surface solar radiation and winds in Beijing

Beijing has been experiencing serious air pollution in recent years, resulting in serious impacts on the local environment and climate and on human health. In addition to individual pollution sources and weather systems, feedback between aerosols and downwelling solar radiation (DSR) and between aerosols and winds also contribute to heavy aerosol pollution. By using atmospheric visibility (VIS) to represent the relative amount of aerosol pollution during a 5 week observation around the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) period (22 October to 25 November 2014) over a site in south Beijing, China, we show clear positive relationships between DSR and VIS and between winds and VIS. The sensitivities of daily DSR and surface winds to VIS are approximately 15.42 W/m(2)/km and 0.068 m/s/km, respectively. The strengthening contributions to atmospheric visibility by surface DSR-VIS interactions and between surface wind-aerosol interactions are estimated at approximately 15% and 12%, respectively, in south Beijing around the APEC period.