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Cleaner air in China causes ‘sudden warming’ in North America, study finds
- Scientists say lower aerosol emissions in China have led to rising sea temperatures and extreme weather across the Pacific, from Alaska to California
- Aerosols can have a cooling effect as they reflect solar radiation back into space, but they are linked to lung disease and other health conditions
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China’s rapid reductions in aerosol emissions have exacerbated warming events in the Northeast Pacific Ocean and west coast of North America due to atmospheric circulation anomalies, a study has found.
While rapid aerosol emissions abatement from the burning of fossil fuels has improved air quality in China over the past decade, it has also led to a decrease in the cooling effect that aerosols provide the Earth’s surface by reflecting solar radiation.
A Chinese-led study used climate modelling to examine how aerosol reduction and resulting local temperature changes in China have influenced warming elsewhere in the world.
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“The period of 2010 to 2020 has witnessed the warmest Northeast Pacific (NEP) sea surface temperatures ever recorded, with several prolonged extreme ocean warming events,” said the team, which includes researchers from the US and Germany, in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The sea surface temperature along the coast from Alaska to California has been “suddenly warming in the past 10 years”, said Zheng Xiaotong, corresponding author and a professor at the Ocean University of China.
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These warming events in the Northeast Pacific – dubbed “warm blobs” by researchers – have been accompanied by extreme weather, such as the California drought from 2013 to 2016, which cost billions of dollars in agricultural losses, the paper said.
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