Changes in black carbon emissions over Europe due to COVID-19 lockdowns

Evangeliou, Nikolaos; Platt, Stephen M.; Eckhardt, Sabine; Myhre, Cathrine Lund; Laj, Paolo; Alados-Arboledas, L.; Backman, John; Brem, Benjamin T.; Fiebig, Markus; Flentje, H.; Marinoni, Angela; Pandolfi, M.; Yus-Díez, Jesús; Prats, Natalia; Putaud, Jean Philippe; Sellegri, Karine; Sorribas, M.; Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos; Vratolis, Stergios; Wiedensohler, Alfred; Stohl, Andreas

doi:10.5194/acp-2020-1005

Cited by 12 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is in line with a recent study reporting, for Europe, a more pronounced reduction of BC concentrations in the range of 20-40% during lockdown events in those countries that suffered more dramatically from the pandemic (e.g. Italy) 22 . Accordingly, Figure 3B shows the TRAP contribution tracer, by comparing the measurements carried out during lockdown-1 with those one corresponding to intensive observation periods (IOPs) during previous years, covering a wide spectrum of seasonal conditions.…”

Section: Air Pollutionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Understanding the environmental factors related to the decrease in Pediatric Emergency Department referrals for acute asthma during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Dondi¹,

Betti

Carbone

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Asthma exacerbations, a common reason for Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) referral, can be triggered by multiple factors, including infections, air pollution and allergens. Lockdown measures and other public health interventions during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic determined radical changes to behavioral and social habits, that were reflected by a reduction in the transmission of all respiratory pathogens and in the emissions of relevant air pollution anthropogenic sources. Objective: This study aims to describe how restrictions during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic impacted the PED referral for asthma exacerbations and their potentially associated environmental triggers in densely populated urban areas. Methods: PED referrals for acute asthma from 2015 to 2020 were compared to air pollution and pollen data. To this purpose, historical daily concentration records of PM2.5, PM10 (including specific chemical tracers), as well as NO2, C6H6, tree, grass and weed pollen were analyzed. Results: In 2020, asthma-related PED referrals decreased up to 85%, compared to the average referral rate of the previous 5 years (P<0.01). The drastic drop in PED referrals was associated with a reduction of high-priority cases by 50-60%, unlike PED referrals for overall diagnoses, showing a larger contribution for severe outcomes. A concomitant diminished contribution of traffic-related air pollution was shown. Conclusions: The lower rate of asthma exacerbations in childhood can be related to synergic interactions of the multiple effects of lockdown measures which induced lower viral infection rates and decreased exposure to outdoor allergens. The reduction of traffic-related air pollution determined a weakening of inflammatory properties of urban PM.

show abstract

Section: Air Pollutionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Understanding the environmental factors related to the decrease in Pediatric Emergency Department referrals for acute asthma during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Dondi¹,

Betti

Carbone

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, in areas significantly impacted by seasonal biomass burning or dust aerosols, AODs may remain unaffected or even increase during the lockdown period [36,37]. Beyond gaseous pollutants and AOD, there are some studies analyzing the changes in BC concentrations during the lockdown period [26,[38][39][40][41][42], which reported significant reductions (30-70%), but with large variability among regions. On the contrary, only a few works examined the changes in aerosol spectral absorption [43,44], while there is a lack of studies related to changes in spectral-scattering and single-scattering albedo (SSA).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the COVID-19 Lockdown Effects on Spectral Aerosol Scattering and Absorption Properties in Athens, Greece

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

COVID-19 is evolving into one of the worst pandemics in recent history, claiming a death toll of over 1.5 million as of December 2020. In an attempt to limit the expansion of the pandemic in its initial phase, nearly all countries imposed restriction measures, which resulted in an unprecedented reduction of air pollution. This study aims to assess the impact of the lockdown effects due to COVID-19 on in situ measured aerosol properties, namely spectral-scattering (bsca) and absorption (babs) coefficients, black carbon (BC) concentrations, single-scattering albedo (SSA), scattering and absorption Ångström exponents (SAE, AAE) in Athens, Greece. Moreover, a comparison is performed with the regional background site of Finokalia, Crete, for a better assessment of the urban impact on observed differences. The study examines pre-lockdown (1–22 March 2020), lockdown (23 March–3 May 2020) and post-lockdown (4–31 May 2020) periods, while the aerosol properties are also compared with a 3–4 year preceding period (2016/2017–2019). Comparison of meteorological parameters in Athens, between the lockdown period and respective days in previous years, showed only marginal variation, which is not deemed sufficient in order to justify the notable changes in aerosol concentrations and optical properties. The largest reduction during the lockdown period was observed for babs compared to the pre-lockdown (−39%) and to the same period in previous years (−36%). This was intensified during the morning traffic hours (−60%), reflecting the large decrease in vehicular emissions. Furthermore, AAE increased during the lockdown period due to reduced emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, while a smaller (−21%) decrease was observed for bsca along with slight increases (6%) in SAE and SSA values, indicating that scattering aerosol properties were less affected by the decrease in vehicular emissions, as they are more dependent on regional sources and atmospheric processing. Nighttime BC emissions related to residential wood-burning were slightly increased during the lockdown period, with respect to previous-year means. On the contrary, aerosol and pollution changes during the lockdown period at Finokalia were low and highly sensitive to natural sources and processes.

show abstract

“…Generally, compared to the normal emission levels, the weeks with the lowest emissions during the lockdown showed 70% and 48% reductions of the BC emissions in eastern (week 7) and northern China (week 8), respectively. In Europe, an average decrease of 11% in BC emissions was reported due to the COVID‐19 lockdowns, (8%–42% in different countries) (Evangeliou et al., 2020). Despite the recovery of the emissions after the lockdown, BC emissions in both eastern and northern China were still substantially lower (by 62% and 43%, respectively) in weeks 8–10 than during the first half of January, before the lockdown.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the BC emissions in eastern and northern China can influence an enormous population’s health. The changes in BC emissions during COVID‐19 have been reckoned over Europe (Evangeliou et al., 2020). However, we still lack realistic emission estimates of BC during the COVID‐19 lockdown, especially with information on temporal variation during the lockdown period (X. Huang et al., 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%