Abstract. In Eastern China (EC), strong anthropogenic emissions deteriorate the atmospheric environment harbored by the upstream Tibetan and Loess Plateaus, building a south-north zonal distribution of high anthropogenic aerosols. This research analyzed the interannual variability of precipitations with different intensities in the EC region from 1961 to 2010. We found that the frequency of light rain significantly decreased and the occurrence of rainstorm, especially the extraordinary rainstorm significantly increased over the recent decades. The extreme precipitation events presented the same interannual variability pattern with the frequent haze events. Moreover, the extreme rainfall events of various intensities showed a regular interannual variability trend. During the 1980s, the regional precipitation trends in EC showed an obvious "transform" from more light rain to more extreme rainstorms. The running correlation analysis of interdecadal variation further verified that the correlation between the increasing aerosol emissions and the frequency of abnormal precipitation events tended to be more significant in the EC. The correlation between atmospheric visibility and low cloud amounts, which are both closely related with aerosol concentrations, had a spatial distribution of "northern positive and southern negative" pattern, and the spatial distribution of the frequency variability of regional rainstorms was "southern positive and northern negative". After the 1990s, the visibility in summer season deteriorated more remarkably than other seasons, and the light rain frequency decreased obviously while the rainstorm and extraordinary heavy rainfall occurred more frequently. There were significant differences in the interdecadal variation trends in light rain and rainstorm events between the high aerosol concentration areas in the EC and the relatively "clean area" in western China. The aircraft measurements over the EC confirmed that the diameters of cloud droplets decreased under high aerosol concentration condition, thereby inhibiting weak precipitation process.
Are precipitation anomalies associated with aerosol variations over Eastern China?