Potential Driving Factors on Surface Solar Radiation Trends over China in Recent Years
- 1School of Atmospheric Physics, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China (wqy_ncc@163.com)
- 2State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China (huazhang@cma.gov.cn)
- 3Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland ( martin.wild@env.ethz.ch)
The annual mean surface solar radiation (SSR) trends under all-sky, clear-sky, all-sky-no-aerosol, and clear-sky-no-aerosol conditions as well as their possible causes are analyzed during 2005-2018 over China based on different satellite-retrieved datasets to determine the likely drivers of the trends. The results confirm clouds and aerosols as the major contributors to such all-sky SSR trends over China but playing different roles over sub-regions. Aerosol variations during this period result in a widespread brightening, while cloud effects show opposite trends from south to north. Moreover, aerosols contribute more to the increasing all-sky SSR trends over northern China, while clouds dominate the SSR declines over southern China. A radiative transfer model is used to explore the relative contributions of cloud cover from different cloud types to the all-types-of-cloud-cover-induced (ACC-induced) SSR trends during this period in four typical sub-regions over China. The simulations point out that the decreases in low-cloud-cover (LCC) over the North China Plain are the largest positive contributor of all cloud types to the marked annual and seasonal ACC-induced SSR increases, and the positive contributions from both high-cloud-cover (HCC) and LCC declines in summer and winter greatly contribute to the ACC-induced SSR increases over East China. The contributions from medium-low-cloud-cover (mid-LCC) and LCC variations dominate the ACC-caused SSR trends over southwestern and South China all year round, except for the larger HCC contribution in summer.
How to cite: Wang, Q., Zhang, H., and Wild, M.: Potential Driving Factors on Surface Solar Radiation Trends over China in Recent Years, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-5264, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-5264, 2021.