ASDC | COVID-19 Impact on Asian Emissions: Insight from space observations (NASA Terra/MOPITT and ESA S5P/TROPOMI)

COVID-19 Impact on Asian Emissions: Insight from space observations (NASA Terra/MOPITT and ESA S5P/TROPOMI)

March 27, 2020, 8 a.m.

Project: MOPITT

The COVID-19 outbreak is forcing large changes in global economic activities, including industries and transportation, and in people’s daily life in terms of work, school, shopping, and recreation. The large scale lockdown in China early in the year has resulted in significant decreases in atmospheric pollution, captured by multiple satellite observations. These satellite observations highlight the significant role that human activities are playing in modifying our environment, and also provide an opportunity to understand, verify, and quantify the impact of various activities.

Left Map - showing MOPITT total tropospheric CO column values, averaged for the period following the 2019 Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday (4-10 February).
Center Map - Same for the period following the 2020 CNY holiday (24-30 January), during the lockdown.
Right Map - Change in CO between the two periods (2020 minus 2019).

Initial results indicate that CO in the Beijing-Chengdu-Shanghai-Wuhan area has decreased on average by almost 6%, with more than 46% reduction locally. CO increase over SE Asia is consistent with seasonal fires, also observed by the MODIS instruments. Gray indicates missing values due to clouds. © 2020 UCAR.

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