Issue 5, 2021

Aerosol presence reduces the diurnal temperature range: an interval when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced aerosols revealing the effect on climate

Abstract

The immense reduction in aerosol levels during the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to reveal how atmospheric chemistry is regulating our climate, among which the effect of aerosols on climate is a phenomenon of great interest but still in hot debate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has continually identified the effect of aerosols on climate to have the largest uncertainty among the factors contributing to global climate change. Several studies indicate an inverse relationship between aerosol presence in the atmosphere and the diurnal surface air temperature range (DTR). Herein, we test this relationship by analyzing the DTR values from in situ weather station records for periods before and during the COVID-19 epidemic in China where aerosol levels have substantially reduced, compared with the climatological mean levels for a 19 year period. Our analyses find that DTRs from February to June during the COVID-19 pandemic are greater than 3 standard deviations above the climatological mean DTR. This anomaly has never occurred before in the 21st century and is at least in part associated with the observed reduction in aerosols.

Graphical abstract: Aerosol presence reduces the diurnal temperature range: an interval when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced aerosols revealing the effect on climate

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Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
20 mar 2021
Accepted
10 iyn 2021
First published
15 iyn 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2021,1, 208-213

Aerosol presence reduces the diurnal temperature range: an interval when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced aerosols revealing the effect on climate

S. Hu, D. Wang, J. Wu, L. Zhou, X. Feng, T. Fu, X. Yang, A. D. Ziegler and Z. Zeng, Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2021, 1, 208 DOI: 10.1039/D1EA00021G

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