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Abrupt but smaller than expected changes in surface air quality attributable to COVID-19 lockdowns.
- Source :
-
Science advances [Sci Adv] 2021 Jan 13; Vol. 7 (3). Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jan 13 (Print Publication: 2021). - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- The COVID-19 lockdowns led to major reductions in air pollutant emissions. Here, we quantitatively evaluate changes in ambient NO <subscript>2</subscript> , O <subscript>3</subscript> , and PM <subscript>2.5</subscript> concentrations arising from these emission changes in 11 cities globally by applying a deweathering machine learning technique. Sudden decreases in deweathered NO <subscript>2</subscript> concentrations and increases in O <subscript>3</subscript> were observed in almost all cities. However, the decline in NO <subscript>2</subscript> concentrations attributable to the lockdowns was not as large as expected, at reductions of 10 to 50%. Accordingly, O <subscript>3</subscript> increased by 2 to 30% (except for London), the total gaseous oxidant (O <subscript>x</subscript> = NO <subscript>2</subscript> + O <subscript>3</subscript> ) showed limited change, and PM <subscript>2.5</subscript> concentrations decreased in most cities studied but increased in London and Paris. Our results demonstrate the need for a sophisticated analysis to quantify air quality impacts of interventions and indicate that true air quality improvements were notably more limited than some earlier reports or observational data suggested.<br /> (Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).)
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 2375-2548
- Volume :
- 7
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Science advances
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 33523881
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd6696