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Abstract. Biomass burning is a main source for primary carbonaceous particles in the atmosphere and acts as a crucial factor that alters Earth's energy budget and balance. It is also an important factor influencing air quality, regional climate and sustainability in the domain of Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX). During the exceptionally intense agricultural fire season in mid-June 2012, accompanied by rapidly deteriorating air quality, a series of meteorological anomalies was observed, including a large decline in near-surface air temperature, spatial shifts and changes in precipitation in Jiangsu province of East China. To explore the underlying processes that link air pollution to weather modification, we conducted a numerical study with parallel simulations using the fully coupled meteorology–chemistry model WRF-Chem with a high-resolution emission inventory for agricultural fires. Evaluation of the modeling results with available ground-based measurements and satellite retrievals showed that this model was able to reproduce the magnitude and spatial variations of fire-induced air pollution. During the biomass-burning event in mid-June 2012, intensive emission of absorbing aerosols trapped a considerable part of solar radiation in the atmosphere and reduced incident radiation reaching the surface on a regional scale, followed by lowered surface sensible and latent heat fluxes. The perturbed energy balance and re-allocation gave rise to substantial adjustments in vertical temperature stratification, namely surface cooling and upper-air heating. Furthermore, an intimate link between temperature profile and small-scale processes like turbulent mixing and entrainment led to distinct changes in precipitation. On the one hand, by stabilizing the atmosphere below and reducing the surface flux, black carbon-laden plumes tended to dissipate daytime cloud and suppress the convective precipitation over Nanjing. On the other hand, heating aloft increased upper-level convective activity and then favored convergence carrying in moist air, thereby enhancing the nocturnal precipitation in the downwind areas of the biomass-burning plumes.

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Low clouds play a key role in the Earth-atmosphere energy balance and influence agricultural production and solar-power generation. Smoke aloft has been found to enhance marine stratocumulus through aerosol-cloud interactions, but its role in regions with strong human activities and complex monsoon circulation remains unclear. Here we show that biomass burning aerosols aloft strongly increase the low cloud coverage over both land and ocean in subtropical southeastern Asia. The degree of this enhancement and its spatial extent are comparable to that in the Southeast Atlantic, even though the total biomass burning emissions in Southeast Asia are only one-fifth of those in Southern Africa. We find that a synergetic effect of aerosol-cloud-boundary layer interaction with the monsoon is the main reason for the strong semi-direct effect and enhanced low cloud formation in southeastern Asia.