Air Quality over China

The strong economic growth in China in recent decades, together with meteorological factors, has resulted in serious air pollution problems, in particular over large industrialized areas with high population density. To reduce the concentrations of pollutants, air pollution control policies have been successfully implemented, resulting in the gradual decrease of air pollution in China during the last decade, as evidenced from both satellite and ground-based measurements. The aims of the Dragon 4 project “Air quality over China” were the determination of trends in the concentrations of aerosols and trace gases, quantification of emissions using a top-down approach and gain a better understanding of the sources, transport and underlying processes contributing to air pollution. This was achieved through (a) satellite observations of trace gases and aerosols to study the temporal and spatial variability of air pollutants; (b) derivation of trace gas emissions from satellite observations to study sources of air pollution and improve air quality modeling; and (c) study effects of haze on air quality. In these studies, the satellite observations are complemented with ground-based observations and modeling.

近几十年来，中国强劲的经济增长以及气象因素导致了严重的空气污染问题，特别是在人口密度高的大型工业化地区。为了降低污染物浓度，空气污染控制政策已成功实施，从卫星和地面测量结果来看，过去十年中国的空气污染逐渐减少。“中国空气质量”龙4项目的目标是确定气溶胶和微量气体浓度的趋势，采用自上而下的方法量化排放，并更好地了解导致空气污染的来源、传输和潜在过程。这是通过以下方式实现的：(a)对微量气体和气溶胶进行卫星观测，以研究空气污染物的时空变异性；(b)从卫星观测中推导微量气体排放，以研究空气污染的来源并改进空气质量建模；(c)研究雾霾对空气质量的影响。在这些研究中，卫星观测与地面观测和建模相互补充。