title: Impacts of wind stilling on solar radiation variability in China.
abstract: Solar dimming and wind stilling (slowdown) are two outstanding climate changes occurred in China over the last four decades. The wind stilling may have suppressed the dispersion of aerosols and amplified the impact of aerosol emission on solar dimming. However, there is a lack of long-term aerosol monitoring and associated study in China to confirm this hypothesis. Here, long-term meteorological data at weather stations combined with short-term aerosol data were used to assess this hypothesis. It was found that surface solar radiation (SSR) decreased considerably with wind stilling in heavily polluted regions at a daily scale, indicating that wind stilling can considerably amplify the aerosol extinction effect on SSR. A threshold value of 3.5 m/s for wind speed is required to effectively reduce aerosols concentration. From this SSR dependence on wind speed, we further derived proxies to quantify aerosol emission and wind stilling amplification effects on SSR variations at a decadal scale. The results show that aerosol emission accounted for approximately 20% of the typical solar dimming in China, which was amplified by approximately 20% by wind stilling.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Changgui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Wenjun
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yingying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Deliang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fu