ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-11-7715-2011 Spatial features of rain frequency change and pollution and associated aerosols Lin Y. 1 2 Min Q. 2 Zhuang G. 1 Wang Z. 3 Gong W. 3 Li R. 2 Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, China Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, State University of New York, USA Department of Environmental Science, Wuhan University, China 03 08 2011 11 15 7715 7726 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/7715/2011/acp-11-7715-2011.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/7715/2011/acp-11-7715-2011.pdf

A spatial-temporal analysis has been conducted using satellite observed distributions of rain frequency, NO<sub>2</sub> concentration and aerosol, with focus on the spring season in East Asia. As NO<sub>2</sub> is a key precursor of secondary aerosols, especially in urban areas, an increase of NO<sub>2</sub> emission is generally accompanied by an increase of fine aerosol particles. Comparison between trends in rain frequency and in precipitation amount shows that the changes in precipitation are more due to changes in precipitation occurrence than in precipitation amount. The overall feature emerged from the region-by-region analyses is that there is an inverse relationship between the rain frequency and the pollution and associated aerosols at continental scale in spring. The change in rain frequency is associated with changes in pollution-produced aerosols and long-range transport mineral dust. The inverse relationship at large temporal and spatial scales illustrates potential climatological consequence of changed pollution and aerosols on precipitation. Due to relatively short duration of observation and the potential uncertainty and bias associated with satellite measurements, more robust longer-term statistical study at various temporal and spatial scales and detailed modeling investigation are warranted to understand the physical causality of observed relationship between the rain frequency and the pollution and associated aerosols.

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