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The Spring Festival Effect on air quality in the megacities of China: View from space
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  • Dongqing Li,
  • Qizhong Wu,
  • Hui Wang,
  • Han Xiao,
  • Qi Xu,
  • Lizhi Wang,
  • Jinming Feng,
  • Xiaochun Yang,
  • Huaqiong Cheng,
  • Lanning Wang,
  • Yiming Sun
Dongqing Li
Beijing Normal University
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Qizhong Wu
Beijing Normal University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Hui Wang
University of California
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Han Xiao
Beijing Normal University
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Qi Xu
Beijing Normal University
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Lizhi Wang
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Jinming Feng
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Xiaochun Yang
Beijing Normal University
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Huaqiong Cheng
College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University
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Lanning Wang
College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University
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Yiming Sun
Beijing Normal University
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Abstract

The Spring Festival is the most important holiday in China, human activity and population mobility may contribute greatly to air quality, especially in the megacities. According to the satellite-based tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO) column and ground-based observational concentration of NO in the megacities from 2013 to 2018 around the Spring Festival, we found that NO concentration decreases obviously during the Spring Festival in China, particularly in the megacities. The tropospheric NO columns density around Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region decreases about 40% than the period before the festival, that in Beijing and Tianjin decreases by 41.6% and 44.5% respectively. Similarly, the other two municipal cities Shanghai and Chongqing decrease by 43.2% and 31.8% in the urban. Consistently, the ground-based NO concentration in the four megacities decrease by 18.9% ~ 38.8%. Besides, the ground-based NO concentration also decreases by above 20% during the Spring Festival vacation in the other eight megacities in China.