Abrupt emission reduction during COVID-19 intensified the spring 2020 rainfall over India

Abstract

The high level of aerosol pollution in South Asia has a measurable impact on clouds, radiation, and precipitation. Here, exploring multiple observational data sets and simulations of the state-of-the-art ECHAM6-HAMMOZ chemistry-climate model, we report that the reduction in anthropogenic emissions during the COVID-19 lockdown period has enhanced precipitation by 5–25% over India. This precipitation enhancement is the result of the combined effect of an enhancement in cloud cover, a reduction in aerosol induced cloud invigoration and dynamical changes. We observed that the increase in cloud cover was associated with a reduction in cloud base height and an increase in the effective radius of cloud particles which led to an increase in cloud water content. In response to sudden emission reduction, an anomalous northward moisture transport was observed adding convection and precipitation over the Indian region. Importantly, we show that there is an advantage of anthropogenic pollution reduction for water availability in addition to benefits of air quality, human health, and crop yield.

Our Moon experiences COVID-19 global lockdown effect !

“…Mazhar et al, (2021) found a significant reduction in Net Solar Radiation (NSR), Net Thermal Radiation (NTR) and Net Radiation (NR) during the global lockdown [17] . Furthermore, various global and regional studies also investigated similar effects of COVID-19 imposed lockdown on Earth's Radiation Budget and stated a clear reduction in terrestrial radiation and air pollution across the world [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] .…”