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Atmospheric black carbon (BC) is an important pollutant for both air quality and Earth's energy balance. Estimates of BC climate forcing remain highly uncertain, e.g., due to the mixing with non-absorbing components. Non-absorbing aerosols create a coating on BC and may thereby act as a lens which may enhance the light absorption. However, this absorption enhancement is poorly constrained. To this end a two-step solvent dissolution protocol was employed to remove both organic and inorganic coatings, and then investigate their effects on BC light absorption. Samples were collected at a severely polluted urban area, Jinan, in the North China Plain (NCP) during February 2014. The BC mass absorption cross-section (MAC) was measured for the aerosol samples before and after the solvent-decoating treatment, and the enhancement of MAC (E-MAC) from the coating effect was defined as the ratio. A distinct diurnal pattern for the enhancement was observed, with EMAC 1.3 +/- 0.3 (1 S.D.) in the morning, increasing to 2.2 +/- 1.0 in the afternoon, after that dropping to 1.5 +/- 0.8 in the evening-night. The BC absorption enhancement primarily was associated with urban-scale photochemical production of nitrate and sulfate aerosols. In addition to that, regional-scale haze plume with increasing sulfate levels strengthened the absorption enhancement. These observations offer direct evidence for an increased absorption enhancement of BC due to severe air pollution in China.

The radiative absorption enhancement of ambient black carbon (BC), by light-refractive coatings of atmospheric aerosols, constitutes a large uncertainty in estimates of climate forcing. The direct measurements of radiative absorption enhancement require the experimentally-removing the coating materials in ambient BC-containing aerosols, which remains a challenge. Here, the absorption enhancement of the BC core by non-absorbing aerosol coatings was quantified using a two-step removal of both inorganic and organic matter coatings of ambient aerosols. The mass absorption cross-section (MAC) of decoated/pure atmospheric BC aerosols of 4.4 +/- 0.8 m(2)g(-1) was enhanced to 9.6 +/- 1.8 m(2)g(-1) at 678-nm wavelength for ambiently-coated BC aerosols at a rural Northern China site. The enhancement of MAC (E-MAC) rises from 1.4 +/- 0.3 in fresh combustion emissions to similar to 3 for aged ambient China aerosols. The three-week high-intensity campaign observed an average E-MAC of 2.25 +/- 0.55, and sulfates were primary drivers of the enhanced BC absorption.