A professor has said that frequent smoggy days in East China are related to the melting of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau glaciers, the modern Express reported.

Zhao Tianliang, a professor at the Nanjing University of Information and Technology, released the research results at an APEC symposium on climate change in the capital of Jiangsu province on Monday.

Zhao said that as the plateau warms, the temperature difference is reduced between the land in the region and the ocean off east China, which directly weakens wind and makes air pollutants harder to disperse.

Even if polluting emissions remain unchanged, air quality would be worse if the plateau continues to warm, his research revealed.

Smog has shrouded north China three times this month. Zhou Bing, an expert at the National Climate Center, said that as autumn and winter arrive, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in north China, the Yangtze River Delta in east China, the Pearl River Delta in the south, and the Sichuan-Chongqing region will be choked by smog in the next few months.