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What would a free pandemic be Was 2020? A new model created by NASA aimed to answer this question by revealing the dramatic effects the coronavirus blockade had on Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA researchers created a computer-generated model that mapped what 2020 would look like without a global pandemic. The maps reveal a shocking truth: Global nitrogen dioxide levels this year were nearly 20% lower than they might otherwise have been.
It is a clear demonstration of how great the influence humanity has on the balance of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
Researchers presented the model this week at the 2020 International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analytics.
Since government-imposed lockdowns around the world began earlier this year, satellites have measured a significant drop in nitrogen dioxide levels around the world. Satellite images collected by the European Space Agency (ESA) in April revealed a 45-50% drop in nitrogen dioxide levels across Europe. And satellite data collected by NASA in March 2020 showed a 30 percent drop in nitrogen dioxide levels compared to average levels recorded from March 2015 to March 2019 in the northeastern United States.
Nitrogen dioxide is one of the most abundant greenhouse gas pollutants and is used as a measure of air pollution.
Scientists behind the new models suspected that with the blockages, human activity would slow down and, in turn, greenhouse gas emissions would decrease. But they had to prove the hypothesis.
“We all knew the blocks would impact air quality,” says Christoph Keller, scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and co-author of the new research.
“It was also soon clear that it would be difficult to quantify how much of that change was related to the blocking measures, relative to general seasonality or pollution variability,” he explains.
Comparing year 2020 nitrogen dioxide levels with previous years like 2019 and 2018 doesn’t really tell scientists much about how coronavirus-related restrictions have impacted global air pollution. Regular variations in weather and atmospheric circulation change the composition and chemistry of the Earth’s atmosphere, so no two years are exactly alike.
So rather than comparing the year 2020 with a previous year, the researchers compared 2020 with a version of itself – a 2020 without the spread of a global pandemic.
NASA’s Center for Climate Simulation created an alternate reality for the year 2020, in which human activity had not been completely altered due to lockdown restrictions.
The researchers then compared the simulated nitrogen dioxide levels in the model with the levels measured by satellites over the year in 46 countries.
They found an average decline of nearly 20% worldwide, with 50 of the 61 cities analyzed showing reductions in nitrogen dioxide between 20-50% compared to what might have happened in a pandemic-free 2020.
Wuhan, China showed a 60% reduction in nitrogen dioxide levels, as did Milan, Italy, while New York City had a 45% decrease.
The new model illustrates how much human activity affects air pollution levels around the world.
“In a way, I was surprised at how much he fell,” Keller said.
“Many countries have already done a great job of lowering their nitrogen dioxide concentrations over the past few decades thanks to clean air regulations, but what our results clearly show is that there is still a significant behavior-driven contribution. human”.
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