A comprehensive investigation using the air quality network and meteorological data of China in 2015 showed that PM_2.5 driven by cold surges from the ground level could travel up to 2000 km from northern to southern China within two days. Air pollution is more severe and prominent during the winter in north China due to seasonal variations in energy usage, trade wind movements, and industrial emissions. In February 2015, two cold surges traveling from north China caused a temporary increase in the concentration of PM_2.5 in Shanghai. Subsequently, the concentration of PM_2.5 in Xiamen increased to a high of 80 µg/m³_, which is double the average PM_2.5 concentration in Xiamen during the winter. This finding is a new long-range transport mechanism comparing to the well-established mechanism, with long-range transport more likely to occur in the upper troposphere than at lower levels. These observations were validated by results from the back trajectory analysis and the RAMS- CMAQ model. While wind speed was found to be a major facilitator in transporting PM_2.5 from Beijing to Xiamen, more investigation is required to understand the complex relationship between wind speed and PM_2.5 and how it moderates air quality in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xiamen.

Extreme climatic events have profound impacts on human society. Here we present the results of a study of organic biomarkers within a sedimentary section at the archaeological site of Yuchisi, eastern China, in order to reconstruct climatic variability during the Dawenkou (5,050–4,400 yr BP) and Longshan (4,400–4,000 yr BP) cultures. At ~4,400 yr BP, within the cultural transition horizon, abrupt changes in biomarkers, such as the fatty acid ratio C_18:2/C_18:0, 2C₃₁/(C₂₇ + C₂₉), n-C₁₈-ol and n-C₃₀-ol, indicate the occurrence of local climate changes over the course of a few decades. These changes occurred during the transition from the Holocene warm period to a subsequent cold period which lasted for the following 600 years. This climatic shift has been recorded at numerous sites worldwide and it is likely to have been the main cause of the widespread collapse of many isolated cultures at that time. The palaeoclimatic and archaeological data from the Yuchisi sediments may provide new insights into the relationship between climate change and prehistoric cultural transitions.

Samples of fresh penguin excrements and lake sediments composed of aged penguin excrements were collected on an Antarctic Peninsula island. Gases emitted from these samples were collected and analyzed for volatile organosulfur compounds. No dimethyl sulfide (DMS) was found. However, dimethyl trisulfide (DMTS), dimethyl tetrasulfide (DMTTS), and dimethyl pentasulfide (DMPS) were found among the numerous organic compounds emitted from fresh penguin droppings. These sulfur compounds account for as mush as 13.5% of the emitted gases, but they have not been reported previously in atmospheric gases and therefore may represent a hitherto undetected source of atmospheric sulfur. To evaluate the potential contribution of this non‐DMS biogenic source to the atmospheric sulfur reservoir at high southern latitudes, measurements of various chemical species in aerosols at several coastal Antarctic locations were analyzed and compared. The locations include Zhongshan Station (China) and Dumont D'Urville (France) in east Antarctica. Tentative calculations based on assumptions of similar aerosol sources and composition at these locations show that in areas downwind from large penguin colonies up to 5.5 × 10⁻⁵ nmol m⁻³ sulfur may be attributed to penguin emissions on a per‐penguin basis. Depending on the size of penguin population at a given location, sulfur from this non‐DMS source may account for 5–15% of the total non‐sea‐salt (nss) sulfur in these areas. Such high contributions may significantly impact the atmospheric sulfur burden and alter the sulfur budget in the high southern latitudes.

A series of alkyl amides was detected and identified in the sedimentary record from an archaeological site at Yuchisi, Mengcheng, Anhui, China. The alkyl amides profiles change abruptly at the depth corresponding to the transition between two prehistoric cultures, which also corresponds to an abrupt change in the fatty acid ratio C_18:2/C_18:0. The different patterns of variation of the longer and shorter chain alkyl amides at the depth of the cultural transition may reflect differences in their response to external environmental changes, as well as different sources. This is the first study of the stratigraphic variation of alkyl amides in sediments, and their first application to assess paleoenvironmental changes. We suggest that alkyl amides may have potential as new biomarkers in archeological and paleoenvironmental studies.

Fine particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) has harmful impacts on regional climate, economic development and public health. The high PM2.5 concentrations in China’s urban areas are mainly caused by the combustion of coal and gasoline, industrial pollution and unknown/uncertain sources. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region with a land area of 218,000 km2, which contains 13 cities, is the biggest urbanized region in northern China. The huge population (110 million, 8% of the China’s population), local heavy industries and vehicle emissions have resulted in severe air pollution. Traditional models have used 10 km Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) products and proved the statistical relationship between AOD and PM2.5. In 2014, the 3 km MODIS AOD product was released which made PM2.5 estimations with a higher resolution became possible. This study presents an estimation on PM2.5 distributions in the BTH region from September 2014 to August 2015 by combining the MODIS satellite data, ground measurements of PM2.5, meteorological parameters and social-economic factors based on the geographically weighted regression model. The results demonstrated that the 10 km AOD product provided results with a slightly higher accuracy although the 3 km AOD product could provide more information about the spatial variations of PM2.5 estimations. Additionally, compared with the global regression, the geographically weighed model was able to improve the estimation results.

We report here the draft genome sequence of Loktanella cinnabarina strain XM1, which was isolated from coastal surface water and shared 99.43% 16S rRNA gene sequence identity with the deep-sea bacterium L. cinnabarina LL-001 ^T . The estimated genome size of strain XM1 is 3,782,785 bp, with a G+C content of 67.9%.