Abrupt emissions reductions during COVID-19 contributed to record summer rainfall in China
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- Nanjing Univ. of Information Science and Technology (China)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Ocean Univ. of China, Qingdao (China); Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (QNLM) (China)
- Tianjin Istitute of Meteorological Science (China)
- Fudan Univ., Shanghai (China)
Record rainfall and severe flooding struck eastern China in the summer of 2020. The extreme summer rainfall occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in China in early 2020 and spread rapidly across the globe. By disrupting human activities, substantial reductions in anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols might have affected regional precipitation in many ways. Here, we investigate such connections and show that the abrupt emissions reductions during the pandemic strengthened the summer atmospheric convection over eastern China, resulting in a positive sea level pressure anomaly over northwestern Pacific Ocean. The latter enhanced moisture convergence to eastern China and further intensified rainfall in that region. Modeling experiments show that the reduction in aerosols had a stronger impact on precipitation than the decrease of greenhouse gases did. We conclude that through abrupt emissions reductions, the COVID-19 pandemic contributed importantly to the 2020 extreme summer rainfall in eastern China.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- National Key Research and Development Program of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1855983
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-162323
- Journal Information:
- Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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