Jie Sha's research while affiliated with Nanjing University and other places

Based on observation data from urban observation stations in Nanjing and Suzhou at two heights in the roughness sublayer above the canopy and observation data at three heights in the SORPES station at the Xianlin Campus of Nanjing University in a suburban area, the representativeness of land-atmosphere turbulent flux exchange and the energy balance over complex underlying surfaces were analyzed. The results indicated that in the roughness sublayer above the canopy, the near-surface momentum flux, sensible heat flux, and latent heat flux increase with height, and the observation value of the surface albedo increases with height. However, the observation value of the net radiation decreases with height, thus resulting in a change in the urban surface energy budget with height. At the SORPES station in the Xianlin Campus of Nanjing University located in a hilly area, the momentum flux, sensible heat flux, and latent heat flux of the ground observation field significantly differed from those of the two heights on the tower, while the two heights on the tower were extremely close. These results indicate that the flux observation over the complex underlying surface exhibits adequate local representativeness only when it is conducted at a higher altitude above the ground. The turbulent flux observation results at a lower altitude in urban areas are underestimated, while the turbulent flux observation results near the surface produce a large deviation over the underlying hilly complex.

A severe haze-fog episode occurred in the Yangtze River Delta region of eastern China during 22–30 November, 2018. In this period, the PM2.5 mass concentration and meteorological parameters at the surface were collected at the Station for Observing Regional Processes of the Earth System site in Nanjing. The vertical distributions of PM2.5, humidity and potential temperature below 500 m were observed simultaneously by an unmanned aerial vehicle, and the profile of potential temperature at 1400 local standard time on each day was also observed by radiosonde at the same site. During the first four days, the PM2.5 mass concentration increased, the maximum convective planetary boundary layer height (CBLH) decreased, and the air humidity increased. These are favorable conditions for fog formation. In the latter five days, fog formed on four days, with a lowering of the CBLH and a further increase in PM2.5 mass concentration. We found that the fog top cooling induced a potential temperature jump (i.e., sharp increase of potential temperature) with much warmer temperatures above the cloud top cooling and that this particular thermal structure was maintained until the end of the fog period, which significantly suppressed the daytime development of the planetary boundary layer after fog dissipation. The fog-induced reduction of the CBLH further increased the PM2.5 mass concentration. We also found that the wet deposition of fog on PM2.5 was negligible. The scavenging effect of fog on aerosols only acts during a fog period. When the fog dissipates, the aerosols are liberated from the fog droplets to the atmosphere.