The origin of long-range links of air pollution in China

Weather conditions significantly influence the formation and dispersion of pollution variations. Here we study networks of pollution as well as climate networks and find that pollutants may not only have an impact close to their source but also show a significant correlation with pollutant concentrations thousands of kilometers away. We develop a pollution network model based on cross-correlation between PM_2.5 concentration time series in different sites in China to detect stable long-range links during the last ten years. A multi-network analysis of the 500 hPa geopotential height and PM_2.5 concentration suggests that long-range correlations in PM_2.5 levels are also influenced by synoptic activity.