Early spring near-surface ozone in Europe during the COVID-19 shutdown: Meteorological effects outweigh emission changes

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the control measures during the COVID-19 lockdown in Europe (15 March–30 April 2020) on 1-h daily maximum nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and maximum daily 8-h running average ozone (MDA8 O 3 ) observations obtained from the European Environment Agency's air quality database (AirBase). Daily maximum NO 2 decreased consistently over the whole continent, with relative reductions ranging from 5% to 55% with respect to the same period in 2015–2019 for 80% of the sites considered (10th – 90th percentiles). However, MDA8 O 3 concentrations showed a different pattern, decreasing over Iberia and increasing elsewhere. In particular, a large region from northwestern to central Europe experienced increases of 10–22% at urban background stations, reaching typical values of the summer season. The analysis of the expected NO 2 and O 3 concentrations in the absence of the lockdown, using generalised additive models fed by reanalysis meteorological data, shows that the low NO 2 concentrations were mostly attributed to the emission reductions while O 3 anomalies were dominated by the meteorology. The relevance of each meteorological variable depends on the location. The positive O 3 anomalies in northwestern and central Europe were mostly associated with elevated temperatures, low specific humidity and enhanced solar radiation. This pattern could be an analogue to study the limits of pollution control policies under climate change scenarios. On the other hand, the O 3 reduction in Iberia is mostly attributable to the low solar radiation and high specific humidity, although the reduced zonal wind also played a role in the proximity of the Iberian Mediterranean coast.

Association of air pollution and meteorological variables with COVID-19 incidence: Evidence from five megacities in India

“…In addition to these pollutants, the meteorological parameters also play an important role in the production of ozone. Advection of warm and polluted air masses can also raise the near surface ozone concentrations ( Sun et al, 2017 ; Garrido-Perez et al, 2019 ; Ordonez et al, 2020 ). Higher temperatures and stagnant conditions at Delhi and Kolkata are likely to have favored the photochemical reactions and increase the production rates of O 3 .…”

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

“…China: (Agarwal et al, 2020;Chauhan and Singh, 2020;Chen et al, 2020a;Chen et al, 2020c;Chen et al, 2020d;Fan et al, 2020;G Huang and Sun, 2020;Lian et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020c;Miyazaki et al, 2020;Nichol et al, 2020;Pei et al, 2020;Shakoor et al, 2020;Shi and Brasseur, 2020;Silver et al, 2020;Wan et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020a;Wang et al, 2020b;Wang et al, 2020f;Xu et al, 2020c;Zhang et al, 2020a;Yuan et al, 2021) Other: (Ghahremanloo et al, 2020;Han et al, 2020;Ju et al, 2020;Ma and Kang, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020b) South Asia India: (Bedi et al, 2020;Beig et al, 2020;Biswal et al, 2020;Chatterjee et al, 2020;Gautam et al, 2020;Harshita and Vivek, 2020;Jain and Sharma, 2020;Kant et al, 2020;Kumari and Toshniwal, 2020;Panda et al, 2020;Ranjan et al, 2020;Selvam et al, 2020;Sharma et al, 2020a;Siddiqui et al, 2020;Singh and Chauhan, 2020;…”

“…,,(Le et al, 2020a), a(Lian et al, 2020) a ,(Liu et al, 2020a),(Ma and Kang, 2020), a(Metya et al, 2020),(Nichol et al, 2020), a (Pei et al, 2020), a (Shakoor et al, 2020), a (Shi and Brasseur, 2020), a (Silver et al, 2020), (Venter et al, 2020), (Wang et al, 2020b), a (Xu et al, 2020c), a (Zhang et al, 2020a), a (Zhang et al, 2020c), (Zhao et al, 2020b), a (Zheng et al, 2020), (Wang et al, 2020e), a (Fu et al, 2020), (Wang et al, 2020f), a (Wang et al, 2020a), a (Ding et al, 2020), (Chen et al, 2020d), a (Ghahremanloo et al, 2020), (Zhang et al, 2020d), (Fan et al, 2020), a (Wan et al, 2020), a (Xu et al, 2020c), a (Yuan et al, 2021), a…”

Updating Real-World Profiles of Volatile Organic Compounds and Their Reactivity Estimation in Tunnels of Mexico City

“…For these and other reasons related to geography, weather, and sources, ozone has become one of the most difficult pollutants to control in megacities. An example of this is that, despite the confinement carried out around the world due to COVID-19 sanitary crisis, reports indicate that, in many cities, ozone levels did not drop as expected, while several other cities reported an increase in ozone concentrations, such as Rio de Janeiro [12] and cities in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy [13,14], and China [15], all of them with a VOC-limited regime. Those reports suggested that the main reason for this increase is the important decrease in NOx raising ozone accumulation.…”