ESSIC / AOSC Professor Zhanqing Li was part of a recent study which ties air pollution to catastrophic floods in China during 2013. The study concludes that aerosols trapped in the mountains northwest of the Sichuan Basin in China, warmed the air and suppressed convection, allowing excess moisture to build up and condense into rain as it rose up over the mountains. By setting the modelled emissions at a level similar to that before China's economic boom, the team found that the rate of rainfall in the storm would have been up to 60% lower than under current emissions levels.
