Impacts of climate change and anthropogenic emission reduction on mass concentration of sulfate aerosol in China
YANG Kefan
GAO Yang
ZHANG Junxi
Abstract：Based on the WRF-CMAQ(Weather Research and Forecasting-Community Multiscale Air Quality)model,the evolution characteristics of sulfate aerosol in China in the middle of the 21st century(2056-2060)are studied.The results are listed as follows.(1)Under the past scenario(2015-2019),the mass concentration of sulfate aerosol in China exhibits substantial spatio-temporal variations.The typical feature is that the areas of high mass concentration are located in the northern part of China,such as North China,with the highest mass concentration in winter and generally lower mass concentration in summer.(2)The simulation of future scenario selects both the quasi-carbon neutrality scenario Shared Socioeconomic Pathways(SSP)126 and SSP585 with continuous increase of greenhouse gases and slightly reduction in air pollutants.Under the SSP 126 scenario,compared with the historical scenario,the average mass concentration of sulfate aerosol in 4 seasons in China decreases by 3.1,2.7,3.5 and 4.1 μg·m-3,respectively;under the SSP585 scenario,it decreases by 1.8,1.5,2.0 and 2.2 μg·m-3,respectively.Both scenarios see the largest decrease in winter.(3)The effects of anthropogenic emissions and climate change on sulfate aerosol are isolated.Due to the reduction in anthropogenic emission sources,the mass concentration of sulfate aerosol decreases by 3.5 and 2.1 μg·m-3 under the SSP126 and SSP585 scenarios,respectively.To investigate the impact of climate change only,two numerical simulation experiments are set up,in which the climate changes but the emissions maintain at the historical level.The average mass concentration of sulfate aerosol in China under the SSP585 scenario with greater change of climate shows a larger degree of increase(+0.4 μg·m-3)compared to that under SSP 126(+0.2 μg·m-3)with smaller change of climate.The research shows that the impact of anthropogenic emission reduction on the mass concentration of sulfate aerosol in China is greater than that of climate change,and especially over the areas with severe pollution in winter(e.g.,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei),the decrease is more than 14 μg·m-3.Nevertheless,the effect of climate change remains to be nonnegligible.
Keywords：sulfate aerosolclimate changeWRF-CMAQ modelSSP126 scenarioSSP585 scenario
Publication Date：2025-12-30
Online Publishing Date：2026-05-22(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：10( 16-25 )