COVID-19 Induced Fingerprints of a New Normal Urban Air Quality in the
United States
Abstract
Most countries around the world including the United States took actions
to control COVID-19 spread that lead to an abrupt shift in human
activity. On-road NOx emissions from light and heavy-duty vehicles
decreased by 9% to 19% between February and March at the onset of the
lockdown period in the middle of March in most of the US; between March
and April, the on-road NOx emissions dropped further by 8% to 31% when
lockdown measures were the most stringent. These precipitous drops in
NOx emissions correlated well with tropospheric NO2 column amount
observed by the Sentinel 5 Precursor TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument
(S5P TROPOMI). Furthermore, the changes in TROPOMI tropospheric NO2
across the continental U.S. between 2020 and 2019 correlated well with
changes in on-road NOx emissions (r = 0.68) but correlated weakly with
changes in emissions from the power plants (r = 0.35). At the height of
lock-down related unemployment in the second quarter of 2020, the NO2
values decreased at the rate of 0.8 µmoles/m2 per unit percentage
increase in the unemployment rate. Despite the lifting of lockdown
measures, parts of the US continued to have ~20% below
normal on-road NOx emissions. To achieve this new normal urban air
quality in the US, continuing remote work policies that do not impede
economic growth may become one of the many options.