Covid-19 induced lower-tropospheric ozone changes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15549481 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mariano Mertens (0000-0003-3549-6889, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR), corresponding author), Patrick Jöckel (0000-0002-8964-1394, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)), Sigrun Matthes (0000-0002-5114-2418, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)), Matthias Nützel (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)), Volker Grewe (0000-0002-8012-6783, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)), R Sausen (0000-0002-9572-2393, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 064005-064005 |
| Publication date | 2021-03-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/abf191 |
| OpenAlex | W3138343209 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 48 |
The recent COVID-19 pandemic with its countermeasures, e.g. lock-downs, resulted in decreases in emissions of various trace gases. Here we investigate the changes of ozone over Europe associated with these emission reductions using a coupled global/regional chemistry climate model. We conducted and analysed a business as usual and a sensitivity (COVID19) simulation. A source apportionment (tagging) technique allows us to make a sector-wise attribution of these changes, e.g. to natural and anthropogenic sectors such as land transport. Our simulation results show a decrease of ozone of 8% over Europe in May 2020 due to the emission reductions. The simulated reductions are in line with observed changes in ground-level ozone. The source apportionment results show that this decrease is mainly due to the decreased ozone precursors from anthropogenic origin. Further, our results show that the ozone reduction is much smaller than the reduction of the total NO x emissions (around 20%), mainly caused by an increased ozone production efficiency. This means that more ozone is produced for each emitted NO x molecule. Hence, more ozone is formed from natural emissions and the ozone productivities of the remaining anthropogenic emissions increase. Our results show that politically induced emissions reductions cannot be transferred directly to ozone reductions, which needs to be considered when designing mitigation strategies
Apportionment · Atmospheric sciences · Climatology · Combustion · Geography · Greenhouse gas · Meteorology · NOx · Ozone · Tropospheric ozone · Air Quality and Health Impacts · Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols · Chemistry · COVID-19 impact on air quality · Environmental Science
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |