Increasing Sea-Land Breeze Frequencies Over Coastal Areas of China in the Past Five Decades

Abstract

Sea-land breeze (SLB) is particularly important in coastal regions and can affect weather conditions and air quality. However, previous research on SLB has predominantly focused on specific locations, with varying methodologies used to identify SLB days (SLBDs), leading to a limited understanding of long-term SLB trends across extensive coastal areas. Here, a unified method for gridded reanalysis dataset to identify SLBDs is proposed for the first time, and the trend, influencing factors, and effects on air pollutant recirculation over coastal China are explored. The results demonstrate that SLBDs have increased in 70% of China's coastal areas in the past five decades. Key driving factors include the growing temperature contrast between land and sea, increasing solar radiation, and the weakening background winds. The study suggests that the increasing SLB frequency will enhance air pollutant accumulations, making it challenging to manage air quality effectively in these coastal areas.