Seoul, the most populous city in South Korea, has been practicing social distancing to slow down the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and other air pollutants measured in Seoul over the two 30 day periods before and after the start of social distancing are analyzed to assess the change in air quality during the period of social distancing. The 30 day mean PM2.5 concentration decreased by 10.4% in 2020, which is contrasted with an average increase of 23.7% over the corresponding periods in the previous 5 years. The PM2.5 concentration decrease was city-wide and more prominent during daytime than at nighttime. The concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) decreased by 16.9% and 16.4%, respectively. These results show that social distancing, a weaker forcing toward reduced human activity than a strict lockdown, can help lower pollutant emissions. At the same time, synoptic conditions and the decrease in aerosol optical depth over the regions to the west of Seoul support that the change in Seoul’s air quality during the COVID-19 social distancing can be interpreted as having been affected by reductions in the long-range transport of air pollutants as well as local emission reductions.

Understanding turbulent flow and pollutant dispersion in urban areas is one of the important problems in urban meteorology and environmental fluid mechanics. In this study, we examine turbulent flow and pollutant dispersion in a densely built‐up area in Seoul, South Korea, using the parallelized large‐eddy simulation model (PALM). In particular, we focus on vortex streets and associated pollutant dispersion behind high‐rise buildings. The turbulence recycling method is used to produce inflow profiles. Vortices are generated near the high‐rise buildings and propagate downstream forming vortex streets behind the high‐rise buildings. To investigate characteristics of the vortex streets, spectral and correlation analyses are performed. The spectral analysis reveals that vortices have a non‐dimensional vortex shedding frequency of 0.1–0.2, and this periodicity is weakened due to the influence of other buildings. The correlation analysis shows that vortices appear frequently in regions of negative pressure perturbation. The vertical turbulent momentum fluxes induced by ejections and sweeps largely contribute to the total vertical turbulent momentum flux downstream of the high‐rise buildings. Especially, ejections in the wake region are stronger compared to other regions because ejections are induced by vortices near the top of the high‐rise buildings. It is found that pollutant dispersion is interrupted by both low‐rise and high‐rise buildings. Strong updraughts behind the high‐rise buildings transport pollutant upward and increase the mean pollutant concentration at upper levels. Vortices forming the vortex streets play a role in pollutant mixing in such a way that the vortices eject air of high pollutant concentration from the wake region behind the high‐rise buildings and entrain air of low pollutant concentration into the wake region. The mixing by vortices is verified by the correlation between vorticity and pollutant concentration.