A photo of an announcement telling meteorological administrations to stop issuing smog alerts went viral on Sina Weibo on Jan. 17. An employee from the China Meteorological Administration admitted to Thepaper.cn that it was an internal document that has yet to be issued to the public. He said a consultation mechanism will soon be established to determine how smog warnings will be announced in the future.

According to the notice, meteorological administrations and observatories at all government levels are ordered to immediately stop issuing smog forecasts and warnings. Circumstances in which visibility drops to less than 10 kilometers should be categorized as fog, the announcement stated.

Smog warnings issued by different meteorological and environmental protection administrations sometimes vary, even on the same day, the employee said. That is partly because the issuing units use different processes to determine smog levels, according to Weather.com.

The fact that meteorological departments are no longer in charge of releasing smog alerts signifies the clear definition of different departments' responsibilities, according to some meteorological and environmental protection administration members.