Abstract: Environment is an important resource input for modern economic activities, and the extent of pollution manifests the social cost of this input.The heterogeneity of the atmospheric environment exhibits significant impact on the actual result of air pollution, making it bearing the basic characteristics of sub-resource.In this study, some basic assumptions and an index model of atmospheric environmental resources are given based on the economic consequences of air pollution combined with the mechanism of weather change and air pollution.Then, the applicability of AERI is empirically tested by employing the ground meteorological observation data and air quality monitoring data of China from 2015 to 2020.The results show that there is a significant negative correlation between atmospheric resources and air quality in time series by using the simplified index model with two parameters of temperature and wind speed.In 2020, most of the worsening of air quality in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou can be attributed to the decrease of atmospheric environmental resources.In cities with relatively scarce atmospheric environmental resources, such as Chengdu, Xi’an, Zhengzhou, Shenyang and so on, the air quality index responses more sensitively to the change of atmospheric environmental resource, and its marginal response degree is 1~2 times that of Guangzhou, Changsha and Shanghai.Significant spatial difference of atmospheric environmental resources is also identified by a panel data analysis of 151 cities from 2015 and 2019.On the margin, the impact of atmospheric environmental resources on air quality index is roughly equal to 50% of industrial emissions.The relationship between meteorological condition and air pollution can be explained by AERI in both short-term and long-term dimensions.Therefore, AERI is of practical meaning for air pollution control by using meteorological resources.