Assessing the Influence of COVID‐19 on the Shortwave Radiative Fluxes Over the East Asian Marginal Seas

Ming, Yi; Loeb, Norman G.; Lin, Pu; Shen, Zhencai; Naik, Vaishali; Singer, Clare E.; Ward, Ryan X.; Paulot, Fabien; Zhang, Zhibo; Bellouin, Nicolas; Horowitz, Larry W.; Ginoux, Paul; Ramaswamy, V.

doi:10.1029/2020gl091699

Cited by 27 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…While both events perturb the TOA radiative imbalance, with detectable impacts on hemispheric energy budgets and surface temperature, the intensity and timescales of both the forcings and responses are found to differ considerably. The effects of COVID are generally subtle and gradual, and on a large scale are a challenge to distinguish from internal variability, as also discussed in Ming et al (2021) and Loeb et al (2021). In contrast, as shown in this and other recent works (Hirsch & Koren, 2021;Khaykin et al, 2020), the AF emissions anomalies are relatively brief but intense, and associated climate responses in FASULLO ET AL.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Detectable anomalies in aerosol burdens span broad latitudinal ranges, particularly for sulfate burdens as the perturbations greatly exceed internal variability. In contrast, the radiative influence of aerosol burdens is in instances obscured by internal variability in both clear-sky and all-sky conditions, an effect remarked upon for COVID by Ming et al (2021), Gettelman et al (2020), andLoeb et al (2021). However, a statistically detectable negative anomaly in ensemble-mean net downward clear-sky shortwave flux (SW CS , Figure 2c) is coincident with anomalous AF BC burdens.…”

Section: Spatiotemporal Structure Of Covid and Af Climate Responsesmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Fasullo

Rosenbloom

Buchholz

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Multiple episodes of anomalous climate forcing have occurred in recent years. These include the biomass burning emissions anomalies from the 2019-2020 Australian wildfire season (hereafter referred to as AF), and anthropogenic emissions perturbations arising from the response to the spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019, which began in Jan 2020 and continues through the present (hereafter referred to as COVID). While significant efforts have been made for diagnosing the climate effects of these events, understanding the coupled response to each and estimating the broader significance of the responses remains a work in progress.The 2019-2020 AF season was singular in its severity and associated particulate emissions (Hirsch & Koren, 2021;Khaykin et al., 2020). While Australia is known as a landscape that experiences frequent bushfires, extreme bushfires with associated pyrocumulonimbus have been increasing over the last few decades and are predicted to increase even further in the coming decades (Dowdy et al., 2019;Sharples et al., 2016). The extreme AF season in 2019-2020 had devastating consequences for lives, ecosystems, and property, including wide-scale smoke impacts across the southeast of the continent (Wintle et al., 2020). Additionally, hemispheric transport of fire pollution at low and lofted altitudes created atmospheric signatures over New Zealand and South America. This pollution remained in the atmosphere for well over three months, with solar heating of a stable, dense smoke plume creating a localized chemical and entrainment driven stratospheric ozone minimum and circulation response (Khaykin et al., 2020). The associated warming of the

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Spatiotemporal Structure Of Covid and Af Climate Responsesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Fasullo

Rosenbloom

Buchholz

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…Some studies have also demonstrated decreased aerosol radiative forcing values (–24.3 W m −2 at surface and –16 W m −2 at TOA in the short wave) due to lower AODs during the lockdown period in Madrid ( Barragan et al, 2020 ) and considerable decreases in carbonaceous aerosol (BC and Brown Carbon) absorption in Wuhan ( Wang et al, 2021 ) and Athens ( Kaskaoutis et al, 2021 ). In addition, a decrease in the radiative forcing in East Asia was attributed to reductions in AOD, with one‐third of the reduced anomalies to be attributed to the lockdown, while the remaining was attributed to natural factors, such as meteorological variability and surface heterogeneity ( Ming et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown on land surface temperature, aerosol, and urban heat in Europe and North America

Parida

Bar

Kaskaoutis

et al. 2021

Sustainable Cities and Society

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The outbreak of SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) has posed a serious threat to human beings, society, and economic activities all over the world. Worldwide rigorous containment measures for limiting the spread of the virus have several beneficial environmental implications due to decreased anthropogenic emissions and air pollutants, which provide a unique opportunity to understand and quantify the human impact on atmospheric environment. In the present study, the associated changes in Land Surface Temperature (LST), aerosol, and atmospheric water vapor content were investigated over highly COVID-19 impacted areas, namely, Europe and North America. The key findings revealed a large-scale negative standardized LST anomaly during nighttime across Europe (–0.11°C to –2.6°C), USA (–0.70°C) and Canada (–0.27°C) in March–May of the pandemic year 2020 compared to the mean of 2015–2019, which can be partly ascribed to the lockdown effect. The reduced LST was corroborated with the negative anomaly of air temperature measured at meteorological stations (i.e. –0.46°C to –0.96°C). A larger decrease in nighttime LST was also seen in urban areas (by ∼1–2°C) compared to rural landscapes, which suggests a weakness of the urban heat island effect during the lockdown period due to large decrease in absorbing aerosols and air pollutants. On the contrary, daytime LST increased over most parts of Europe due to less attenuation of solar radiation by atmospheric aerosols. Synoptic meteorological variability and several surface-related factors may mask these changes and significantly affect the variations in LST, aerosols and water vapour content. The changes in LST may be a temporary phenomenon during the lockdown but provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the effects of various forcing controlling factors in urban microclimate and a strong evidence base for potential environmental benefits through urban planning and policy implementation.

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“…This may be partly due to regional decreases in aerosol primary and precursor emissions caused by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Such decreases have, for example, reduced aerosol radiative effects off the coast of China, at least in cloud-free conditions (Ming et al 2020), which would weaken RFari. The data suggest a weakening trend in aerosol radiative forcing starting around 2015, but the trend would need to be sustained over a longer period to become statistically significant.…”

Section: E Atmospheric Circulation 1) Mean Sea Level Pressure and Related Modes Of Variability-r Allan And B Nollmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Climate

Dunn

Aldred

Gobron

et al. 2021

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

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For reasons other than the climate, 2020 was an extraordinary year. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all of us, changing the lives of many people around the globe. While the economic disruption associated with COVID-19 led to modest estimated reductions of 6-7% (e.g., le Quere et al. 2020;Friedlingstein et al. 2020; BP Statistical Review of the World Energy 2021) in global anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, atmospheric CO 2 levels continued to grow rapidly-a reminder of its very long residence time in the atmosphere and the challenge of reducing atmospheric CO 2 . As we show in this chapter, the climate has continued to respond to the resulting warming from these increases in CO 2 and other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, which also experienced record increases in 2020.The year 2020 was one of the three warmest since records began in the mid-to-late 1800s, with global surface temperatures around 0.6°C above the 1981-2010 average, despite the El Niño-Southern Oscillation progressing from neutral to La Niña conditions by August (see section 4b). Lower tropospheric temperatures matched those from 2016, the previous warmest year. Meanwhile, stratospheric temperatures continued to cool as a result of anthropogenic CO 2 increases. Along with the above-average surface temperatures, an unprecedented (since instrumental records began) geographic spread of heat waves and warm spells occurred. Antarctica observed its highest temperature on record (18.3°C) at Esperanza in February. In August, Death Valley, California, reported the highest temperature observed anywhere on Earth since 1931 (preliminary value of 54.4°C).Consequently, many permafrost measurement sites experienced their highest temperatures on record; Northern Hemisphere (NH) snow cover was below the 51-year average and the fourthleast extensive on record. Glaciers in alpine regions experienced their 33rd consecutive year of negative mass balance and 12th year of average losses of more than 500 mm depth. On average, NH lakes froze over 3 days later and thawed 5.5 days earlier than the 1981-2010 average during the 2019/20 winter, which was the third-shortest ice cover season since 1979/80.The atmosphere responded to higher temperatures accordingly by holding more water. Total column water vapor was high relative to the 1981-2010 average, ranging from 0.75 to 1.06 mm over ocean and 0.58 to 0.94 mm over land, but did not reach the record values of 2016. At the surface, specific humidity over oceans was at record high levels (0.23 to 0.41 g kg −1 ) and was well above average over land (0.14 to 0.36 g kg −1 ). Conversely, relative humidity was well below average over land (-1.28 to -0.68 %rh), continuing the long-term declining trend. Precipitation increased compared to 2019, driven largely by land values, but there were few exceptional extreme precipitation events, coupled with below-average cloudiness over most of the land. More lakes showed positive water level anomalies than 2019, and in East Africa, Lake Victoria's level ...

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Assessing the Influence of COVID‐19 on the Shortwave Radiative Fluxes Over the East Asian Marginal Seas

Cited by 27 publications

References 34 publications

Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown on land surface temperature, aerosol, and urban heat in Europe and North America

Global Climate

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