Exploring the relationship between air pollution and meteorological conditions in China under environmental governance

Extensive studies have been carried out on the impact of human activities on air pollution, but systematic investigation on the relationship between air pollutant and meteorological conditions is still insufficient, especially in the context of China’s site scale and recent comprehensive environmental pollution control. Here, we used a spatial interpolation technology to establish a set of data sets of pollutants and meteorological elements that are spatially matched at 896 stations in China to reveal the air pollutant-meteorological interactions between 2014 and 2019. We found that air pollution and meteorological elements have obvious seasonal and regional characteristics. Over the last few years, the concentration of most air pollutants in China has dropped significantly except for O(3). The increase in O(3) concentration was closely related to the decrease of particulate matter and NO(2) concentration. The concentration of most air pollutants was affected by meteorological conditions, but the level of impact depended on the type of pollutants and varied across regions. The concentration of air pollutants at most stations was significantly negatively correlated with wind speed, precipitation and relative humidity, but positively correlated with atmospheric pressure. As the latitude increases, the impact of temperature on the concentration of air pollutants becomes more obvious. To effectively control air pollution, it is further urgent to reveal the relationship between air pollution and meteorological conditions based on long-term daily or real-time data.