Air stagnation and its impact on air quality during winter in Sichuan and Chongqing, southwestern China

Highlights: • Air stagnation days occurred frequently in Sichuan-Chongqing region in winter. • Air stagnation events impacts strongly on the air quality in Sichuan Basin. • Frequency of air stagnation events in recent 10 years increased slightly. The Sichuan and Chongqing regions suffer from severe haze weather in winter due to the unfavourable atmospheric diffusion conditions. Reanalysis and precipitation datasets were applied in this study to calculate and distinguish air stagnation events using a developed criterion, and the impacts of the occurrence of air stagnation events on air quality were analysed in combination with the PM_2.5 concentration data for the winters of 2013–2016. The highest occurrence frequency of air stagnation events was observed in 2013, and the lowest, 2015. The meteorological conditions during winter in the Sichuan Basin were inclined to form unfavourable atmospheric diffusion conditions, and the occurrence frequency of air stagnation days was up to 76.6% on average during the four winters. The effects of air stagnation events on air quality were most obvious in the western and southern Sichuan Basin. The mean concentrations of PM_2.5 during air stagnation days were higher by 41.9% than those during non-air stagnation days. The PM_2.5 concentrations were adjusted using the favourable atmospheric diffusion conditions in 2015 as a baseline to quantify the PM_2.5 contribution to the improvement of air quality in the other years, which revealed that the level of PM_2.5 in the Sichuan and Chongqing regions was declining at a rate of approximately 10.7% overall during the winters of 2013–2016, implying that the air pollutant reduction measures have been highly effective. Furthermore, the occurrence frequency of air stagnation days and events were increased in recent ten years of 2007–2016, with linear slopes of 0.61 yr⁻¹ and 0.26 yr⁻¹, respectively. The study revealed that the government might face a greater challenge in improving the air quality over winter and should pay more attention to reduction of pollutant emission in areas of Chengdu, Chongqing and cities in the south of the Sichuan Basin.