Climate Impacts of COVID‐19 Induced Emission Changes

Gettelman, Andrew; Lamboll, Robin; Bardeen, Charles G.; Forster, Piers M.; Watson-Parris, Duncan

doi:10.1029/2020gl091805

Cited by 50 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Detectable anomalies in aerosol burdens span broad latitudinal ranges, particularly for sulfate burdens as the perturbations greatly exceed internal variability. In contrast, the radiative influence of aerosol burdens is in instances obscured by internal variability in both clear-sky and all-sky conditions, an effect remarked upon for COVID by Ming et al (2021), Gettelman et al (2020), andLoeb et al (2021). However, a statistically detectable negative anomaly in ensemble-mean net downward clear-sky shortwave flux (SW CS , Figure 2c) is coincident with anomalous AF BC burdens.…”

Section: Spatiotemporal Structure Of Covid and Af Climate Responsesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Fasullo

Rosenbloom

Buchholz

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Multiple episodes of anomalous climate forcing have occurred in recent years. These include the biomass burning emissions anomalies from the 2019-2020 Australian wildfire season (hereafter referred to as AF), and anthropogenic emissions perturbations arising from the response to the spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019, which began in Jan 2020 and continues through the present (hereafter referred to as COVID). While significant efforts have been made for diagnosing the climate effects of these events, understanding the coupled response to each and estimating the broader significance of the responses remains a work in progress.The 2019-2020 AF season was singular in its severity and associated particulate emissions (Hirsch & Koren, 2021;Khaykin et al., 2020). While Australia is known as a landscape that experiences frequent bushfires, extreme bushfires with associated pyrocumulonimbus have been increasing over the last few decades and are predicted to increase even further in the coming decades (Dowdy et al., 2019;Sharples et al., 2016). The extreme AF season in 2019-2020 had devastating consequences for lives, ecosystems, and property, including wide-scale smoke impacts across the southeast of the continent (Wintle et al., 2020). Additionally, hemispheric transport of fire pollution at low and lofted altitudes created atmospheric signatures over New Zealand and South America. This pollution remained in the atmosphere for well over three months, with solar heating of a stable, dense smoke plume creating a localized chemical and entrainment driven stratospheric ozone minimum and circulation response (Khaykin et al., 2020). The associated warming of the

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Section: Spatiotemporal Structure Of Covid and Af Climate Responsesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Fasullo

Rosenbloom

Buchholz

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…Two detection and attribution simulations are proposed to parallel ssp245-covid and allow the separation of the effects of aerosols and well-mixed greenhouse gas perturbations on climate, similar to the way that hist-aer and hist-GHG simulations in DAMIP allow the separation of the effects of these forcings over the full historical period (Gillett et al, 2016). The ssp245-cov-aer simulation is identical to ssp245covid, except that only aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions (BC, OC, SO 2 , SO 4 , NO x , NH 3 , CO, NMVOCs) follow ssp245-covid, while greenhouse gas concentrations, ozone, and all other forcings follow ssp245.…”

Section: Strand-3: Separation Of Forcingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modifying emissions scenario projections to account for the effects of COVID-19: protocol for CovidMIP

et al. 2021

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Abstract. Lockdowns to avoid the spread of COVID-19 have created an unprecedented reduction in human emissions. While the country-level scale of emissions changes can be estimated in near real time, the more detailed, gridded emissions estimates that are required to run general circulation models (GCMs) of the climate will take longer to collect. In this paper we use recorded and projected country-and-sector activity levels to modify gridded predictions from the MESSAGE-GLOBIOM SSP2-4.5 scenario. We provide updated projections for concentrations of greenhouse gases, emissions fields for aerosols, and precursors and the ozone and optical properties that result from this. The code base to perform similar modifications to other scenarios is also provided. We outline the means by which these results may be used in a model intercomparison project (CovidMIP) to investigate the impact of national lockdown measures on climate, including regional temperature, precipitation, and circulation changes. This includes three strands: an assessment of short-term effects (5-year period) and of longer-term effects (30 years) and an investigation into the separate effects of changes in emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. This last strand supports the possible attribution of observed changes in the climate system; hence these simulations will also form part of the Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project (DAMIP).

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“…10.1029/2020GL092263 2 of 8 emissions reduction in this analysis; the interested reader is directed to Fyfe et al (2021) and Gettelman et al (2021) for an investigation of the impact of COVID-related aerosol emission reductions on the climate system.…”

Section: Canesm5 Covid Ensemblementioning

confidence: 99%

The Ocean Carbon Response to COVID‐Related Emissions Reductions

Lovenduski

Swart

Sutton

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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The socioeconomic disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have caused an unprecedented drop in global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2) and other atmospheric pollutants. The year 2020 was characterized by a 6.4% decrease in global CO 2 emissions relative to the previous year (Carbon Monitor Project, 2021; Liu et al., 2020), with average daily emissions declines peaking at −26% in individual countries (Le Quéré et al., 2020). The duration and severity of the emissions decline in the future is as yet unknown, but anomalously low CO 2 emissions are also expected in 2021 (Liu et al., 2020). The important role of CO 2 emissions in the global carbon cycle and climate system motivates further research on this topic. Several research groups are actively studying the impact of the COVID-related emissions reductions on the atmosphere and climate system. The latest World Meteorological Organization bulletin reports slight reductions in 2020 atmospheric CO 2 levels (−0.08 to −0.23 ppm) as a result of the COVID pandemic, though they emphasize that this reduction is difficult to detect given typical year-to-year variations in atmospheric CO 2 (± 1 ppm; World Meteorological Organization, 2020). A recent modeling study concurs that COVID-related reductions in atmospheric CO 2 levels are likely undetectable, but also demonstrates that these short-term

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Climate Impacts of COVID‐19 Induced Emission Changes

Cited by 50 publications

References 37 publications

Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID‐19 Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2

Modifying emissions scenario projections to account for the effects of COVID-19: protocol for CovidMIP

The Ocean Carbon Response to COVID‐Related Emissions Reductions

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