The multi-year contribution of Indo-China peninsula fire emissions to aerosol radiation forcing in southern China during 2013-2019

Jun Zhu; Xu Yue; Hao Zhou; Huizheng Che; Xiangao Xia; Jun Wang; Tianliang Zhao; Chenguang Tian; Hong Liao

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172337

The multi-year contribution of Indo-China peninsula fire emissions to aerosol radiation forcing in southern China during 2013-2019

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Jun 1:927:172337. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172337. Epub 2024 Apr 10.

Authors

Jun Zhu¹, Xu Yue², Hao Zhou³, Huizheng Che⁴, Xiangao Xia⁵, Jun Wang⁶, Tianliang Zhao⁷, Chenguang Tian¹, Hong Liao¹

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (NUIST), Nanjing, 210044, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (NUIST), Nanjing, 210044, China. Electronic address: yuexu@nuist.edu.cn.
³ College of Meteorology and Oceanography, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather (LASW) and Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry (LAC), Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, CMA, Beijing, 100081, China.
⁵ LAGEO, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101408, China.
⁶ Center of Global and Regional Environmental Research and Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.
⁷ Key Laboratory for Aerosol-Cloud-Precipitation of China Meteorological Administration, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.

PMID: 38608908
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172337

Abstract

Fire emissions in Southeast Asia transported to southern China every spring (March-May), influencing not only the air quality but also the weather and climate. However, the multi-year variations and magnitude of this impact on aerosol radiation forcing in southern China remain unclear. Here, we quantified the multi-year contributions of fire emissions in Indo-China Peninsula (ICP) region to aerosol radiation forcing in the various southern Chinese provinces during the fire season (March-May) of 2013-2019 combining the 3-dimension chemical transport model and the Column Radiation Model (CRM) simulations. The models' evaluations showed they reasonably capture the temporal and spatial distribution of surface aerosol concentrations and column aerosol optical properties over the study regions. The fire emissions over the ICP region were found to increase the aerosol optical depth (AOD) value by 0.1 (15 %) and reduce the single scattering albedo (SSA) in three southern regions of China (Yunnan-YN, Guangxi-GX, and Guangdong-GD from west to east), owing to increases in the proportions of black carbon (BC, 0.4 % ± 0.1 %) and organic carbon (OC, 3.0 % ± 0.9 %) within the aerosol compositions. The transported smoke aerosols cooled surface but heated the atmosphere in the southern China regions, with the largest mean reduction of -5 Wm^-2 (-3 %) in surface shortwave radiation forcing and the maximum daily contributions of about -15 Wm^-2 (-15 %) to the atmosphere radiation forcing in the GX region, followed by the GD and YN regions. The impacts of ICP fire emissions on aerosol optical and radiative parameters declined during 2013-2019, with the highest rate of 0.393 ± 0.478 Wm^-2 yr^-1 in the GX for the shortwave radiation forcing in the atmosphere. Besides, their yearly changes in the contribution were consistent with the annual fire emissions in the ICP region. Such strong radiative perturbations of ICP fire emissions were expected to influence regional meteorology in southern China and should be considered in the climate simulations.

Keywords: Aerosol radiation forcing; Models simulation; Smoke aerosol; Southeast Asia; Southern China.