The solar radiation reached a stable level in China since the 1990s, and the transition from dimming to brightening around 1990 was not noticeable in China. According to the latest discovery by ITP Prof. YANG Kun and his research group based on the limited number of radiation stations with reliable long-term time series observations.

This research confirmed a decline of solar radiation over China from 1961 to 2000, but pointed out that the variation magnitude is greatly less than previous estimations. It then suggested the differences as caused by data-quality control and analysis approaches.

By considering the variation in solar radiation together with aerosol quantity over the Tibetan Plateau around 1978, they found no significant correlation between the two, and therefore proposed that cloud changes may be equally important as that of aerosol changes in altering solar radiation.

Named “Solar radiation trend across China in recent decades: a revisit with quality-controlled data”, their research has been published on Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2011, 11: 393-406), and gained high remark as “…deserves to stand as a benchmark for dimming/brightening studies - for China and elsewhere”.