Horizontal visibility trends in China 1981-2005

Trends in Chinese horizontal visibility, the frequency of visibility > 19 km, and haziness for the period between 1981 and 2005 were evaluated based on data for daily horizontal visibility. Annual means were calculated for each station and for China as a whole. Linear regression analysis was used to characterize long-term annual trends in these variables. Over the past 25 years, there has been a significant decrease in horizontal visibility (-2.1 km per decade from 1990 to 2005) and the frequency of visibility > 19 km (-3.5% per decade) but a significant increase in the 75th percentile annual extinction coefficients (25% per 25 year). According to rapid increase of total energy consumption, the consistent spatial and temporal variations of visibility and haze support the speculation that increased aerosol loadings were responsible for the observed decreases in horizontal visibility over much of East China.