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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-1347</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Machine learning significantly improves the simulation of hourly-to-yearly scale cloud nuclei concentration and radiative forcing in polluted atmosphere</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ren</surname>
<given-names>Jingye</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zou</surname>
<given-names>Songjian</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xu</surname>
<given-names>Honghao</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Liu</surname>
<given-names>Guiquan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wang</surname>
<given-names>Zhe</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Anran</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhao</surname>
<given-names>Chuanfeng</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5196-3996</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hu</surname>
<given-names>Min</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4816-9123</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Shang</surname>
<given-names>Dongjie</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Tang</surname>
<given-names>Lizi</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Huang</surname>
<given-names>Ru-Jin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sun</surname>
<given-names>Yele</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2354-0221</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Fang</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5395-601X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Loess Science, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, 710061, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Xi’an Institute for Innovative Earth Environment Research, Xi’an, 710061, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Organic Pollution Prevention and Control, School of Eco-Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518055, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>21</day>
<month>04</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>37</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Jingye Ren et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1347/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1347/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1347/egusphere-2026-1347.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1347/egusphere-2026-1347.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>The accurate prediction of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration (&lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;CCN&lt;/sub&gt;) on a large spatiotemporal scale is challenging but critical to evaluate the aerosol cloud interaction effect. Combining multi-source dataset and the &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;CCN&lt;/sub&gt; simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model, we have developed a Random Forest Regression method (RFRM) model which achieves well prediction of hourly-to-yearly scale &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;CCN&lt;/sub&gt; at typical supersaturations in polluted North China Plain (NCP). We show that the prediction bias of &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;CCN&lt;/sub&gt; compared to observations is reduced from -59 % with the WRF-Chem model to approximately -31 % with the RFRM model (the prediction precision is improved by 1.6 times accordingly) during the campaigns. The greatest improvement is seen in both very polluted and clean cases. The RFRM model captures well the spatial variation and better describes long-term trends of &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;CCN&lt;/sub&gt;. More importantly, the prediction reveals a significant long-term decreasing trend of &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;CCN&lt;/sub&gt; in NCP due to a rapid reduction in aerosol concentrations from 2014 to 2018, during which a series of strict emission reduction measures were implemented by the Chinese government. This reflects the climate benefit of pollution control. Our study further illustrates that the RFRM model reduces the uncertainty in simulating cloud radiative forcing from an overestimation of 1.89 &amp;plusmn; 0.78 W m&lt;sup&gt;-2&lt;/sup&gt; to 0.81 &amp;plusmn; 0.63 W m&lt;sup&gt;-2&lt;/sup&gt;, illustrating the high sensitivity of climate forcing to changes in &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;CCN&lt;/sub&gt;. This work offers a new modeling framework that guides the way to simulate CCN in other regions around the world and has the potential to effectively filling the observation gap of CCN concentrations.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="37"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>42405118</award-id>
<award-id>42475112</award-id>
<award-id>41975174</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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