The global impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on urban air pollution

作者：Georgios I. Gkatzelis, Jessica B. Gilman, Steven S. S Brown, Henk J. Eskes, Ana Rita Gomes, Anne Caroline Lange, Brian McDonald, Jeff Peischl, Andreas Petzold, Chelsea R. Thompson, Astrid Kiendler‐Scharr · 发表于：Elementa Science of the Anthropocene · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1525/elementa.2021.00176 · 被引用次数：250 · 研究领域：COVID-19 impact on air quality、Air Quality and Health Impacts、Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting

The coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic led to government interventions to limit the spread of the disease which are unprecedented in recent history; for example, stay at home orders led to sudden decreases in atmospheric emissions from the transportation sector. In this review article, the current understanding of the influence of emission reductions on atmospheric pollutant concentrations and air quality is summarized for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM2.5), ozone (O3), ammonia, sulfur dioxide, black carbon, volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide (CO). In the first 7 months following the onset of the pandemic, more than 200 papers were accepted by peer-reviewed journals utilizing observations from ground-based and satellite instruments. Only about one-third of this literature incorporates a specific method for meteorological correction or normalization for comparing data from the lockdown period with prior reference observations despite the importance of doing so on the interpretation of results. We use the government stringency index (SI) as an indicator for the severity of lockdown measures and show how key air pollutants change as the SI increases. The observed decrease of NO2 with increasing SI is in general agreement with emission inventories that account for the lockdown. Other compounds such as O3, PM2.5, and CO are also broadly covered. Due to the importance of atmospheric chemistry on O3 and PM2.5 concentrations, their responses may not be li...