A study was carried out in order to investigate the effect of contaminants and meteorological variables on the rust layer of carbon steel exposed in Shenyang urban atmosphere. Seven kinds of contaminants and twelve kinds of meteorological parameters were also registered in order to correlate the data with respect to corrosion rate and the stepwise multiple regression analysis was carried out in order to obtain the best regression model. The sum of rainfall time as well as sunshine time and the concentration of H2S could stimulate initial atmospheric corrosion of carbon steel. The initial atmospheric corrosion kinetics of carbon steel was observed to follow the cubic equation. The corrosion products were analyzed by XRD and the transformation of phases in different periods was discussed. A study was carried out in order to investigate the effect of contaminants and meteorological variables on the rust layer of carbon steel exposed in Shenyang urban atmosphere. Seven kinds of contaminants and twelve kinds of meteorological parameters were also registered in order to correlate the data with respect to corrosion rate and the stepwise multiple regression analysis was carried out in order to obtain the best regression model. The sum of rainfall time as well as sunshine time and the concentration of H2S could stimulate initial atmospheric corrosion of carbon steel. of carbon steel was observed to follow the cubic equation. The corrosion products were analyzed by XRD and the transformation of phases in different periods was discussed.