Suchergebnisse

Although much attention has been paid to investigating and controlling air pollution in China, the trends of air-pollutant concentrations on a national scale have remained unclear. Here, we quantitatively investigated the variation of air pollutants in China using long-term comprehensive data sets from 2013 to 2017, during which Chinese government made major efforts to reduce anthropogenic emission in polluted regions. Our results show a significant decreasing trend in the PM2.5 concentration in heavily polluted regions of eastern China, with an annual decrease of similar to 7% compared with measurements in 2013. The measured decreased concentrations of SO2, NO2 and CO (a proxy for anthropogenic volatile organic compounds) could explain a large fraction of the decreased PM2.5 concentrations in different regions. As a consequence, the heavily polluted days decreased significantly in corresponding regions. Concentrations of organic aerosol, nitrate, sulfate, ammonium and chloride measured in urban Beijing revealed a remarkable reduction from 2013 to 2017, connecting the decreases in aerosol precursors with corresponding chemical components closely. However, surface-ozone concentrations showed increasing trends in most urban stations from 2013 to 2017, which indicates stronger photochemical pollution. The boundary-layer height in capital cities of eastern China showed no significant trends over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions from 2013 to 2017, which confirmed the reduction in anthropogenic emissions. Our results demonstrated that the Chinese government was successful in the reduction of particulate matter in urban areas from 2013 to 2017, although the ozone concentration has increased significantly, suggesting a more complex mechanism of improving Chinese air quality in the future. ; Peer reviewed

Abstract
The slowing of agricultural productivity growth globally over the past two decades has brought a new urgency to detect its drivers and potential solutions. We show that air pollution, particularly surface ozone (O3), is strongly associated with declining agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) in China. We employ machine learning algorithms to generate estimates of high-resolution surface O3 concentrations from 2002 to 2019. Results indicate that China's O3 pollution has intensified over this 18-year period. We coupled these O3 estimates with a statistical model to show that rising O3 pollution during nonwinter seasons has reduced agricultural TFP by 18% over the 2002–2015 period. Agricultural TFP is projected to increase by 60% if surface O3 concentrations were reduced to meet the WHO air quality standards. This productivity gain has the potential to counter expected productivity losses from 2°C warming.