Air pollution way down over Northeast, NASA satellite images appear to show
By
John Murphy, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Apr 10, 2020 7:57 PM EDT
Major cities across the Northeast are now seeing significant improvement in air quality similar to the improvements seen in Italy and China during coronavirus lockdowns.
NASA satellite data has measured Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels over the last several weeks using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), which is part of NASA's Aura satellite.
NO2 is an air pollutant that can be used to indicate human activity because it is emitted from burning diesel, gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels that are used when driving cars or emitted from smokestacks by generating energy. And Americans have been driving a lot less as stay-at-home measures have become widespread around the nation.
Many areas in the Northeast have enacted some of the strictest stay-at-home orders. Places like New York, which is the epicenter of the outbreak, and New Jersey have severely restricted movement by the public for close to a month.
There has been a major reduction in air pollution worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dexter Henry explores how air quality has changed with people sheltering in place.
Typically in March, NO2 levels of around 10.0 (¹â¶ molecules/cm²) from New York City would reach as far as 25 miles, reaching into places like Morristown, New Jersey. In March 2020, NO2 levels that high barely reached the New Jersey border with Morristown seeing an NO2 level of around 6.0.
The I-95 corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston, which include Baltimore, Philadelphia, Hartford and Providence, saw a 30% decrease of NO2 levels in March 2020 compared to the 2015-2019 March average.
Other major cities in the Northeast outside the I-95 corridor that saw major drops in NO2 levels included Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
Times Square is mostly empty, Monday, March 23, 2020 in New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered most New Yorkers to stay home from work to slow the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Perhaps coincidentally, Americans' fuel consumption has plummeted in recent weeks, according to a report released on Friday by AAA. Gas demand hit a 30-year low this week, AAA reported, citing statistics from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and analysts expect demand to continue dropping in the coming weeks. The results of decreased demand can be seen at the pump, as the national average gas price has slid to $1.92 per gallon, AAA said.
Whether the impact of that can be seen in the air quality, however, is not exactly and open-and-shut case.
There is some caution that should be taken with interpreting the data NASA released. One reason is that NO2 levels recorded by satellites aren't the exact same as levels found at the ground level.
NO2 levels can also change through dynamical and chemical processes in the atmosphere, meaning weather can cause atmospheric NO2 readings to change day-to-day. One way this can occur is that the wind can disperse NO2 molecules.
NASA said in its report that further analysis is needed to determine the true amount NO2 levels have changed and if it is associated with changes in pollutant emissions or is a natural variation in weather.
It is also noted that satellites that keep track of NO2 levels can not see through clouds so cloudy days will result in no data being recorded.
“We all have this hunch about how air pollution has changed, the longer this goes on, the more we will see,” NASA air pollution specialist Ryan Stauffer told The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., deliveries have been largely uninhibited by social distancing measures. And in the U.S., most trucks run on diesel fuel while cars operate on unleaded fuel. In Europe, where even more significant pollution reductions have been observed, most cars and trucks run on diesel fuel, Romain Lacombe, the CEO of Plume Labs told AccuWeather earlier this week.
As Lacombe put it, "Cars only account for 9% of emissions for nitrogen dioxide in the Los Angeles area. "Trucks account for about half of them."
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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Air pollution way down over Northeast, NASA satellite images appear to show
By John Murphy, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Apr 10, 2020 7:57 PM EDT
Major cities across the Northeast are now seeing significant improvement in air quality similar to the improvements seen in Italy and China during coronavirus lockdowns.
NASA satellite data has measured Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels over the last several weeks using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), which is part of NASA's Aura satellite.
NO2 is an air pollutant that can be used to indicate human activity because it is emitted from burning diesel, gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels that are used when driving cars or emitted from smokestacks by generating energy. And Americans have been driving a lot less as stay-at-home measures have become widespread around the nation.
Many areas in the Northeast have enacted some of the strictest stay-at-home orders. Places like New York, which is the epicenter of the outbreak, and New Jersey have severely restricted movement by the public for close to a month.
There has been a major reduction in air pollution worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dexter Henry explores how air quality has changed with people sheltering in place.
Typically in March, NO2 levels of around 10.0 (¹â¶ molecules/cm²) from New York City would reach as far as 25 miles, reaching into places like Morristown, New Jersey. In March 2020, NO2 levels that high barely reached the New Jersey border with Morristown seeing an NO2 level of around 6.0.
The I-95 corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston, which include Baltimore, Philadelphia, Hartford and Providence, saw a 30% decrease of NO2 levels in March 2020 compared to the 2015-2019 March average.
Other major cities in the Northeast outside the I-95 corridor that saw major drops in NO2 levels included Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
Times Square is mostly empty, Monday, March 23, 2020 in New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered most New Yorkers to stay home from work to slow the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Perhaps coincidentally, Americans' fuel consumption has plummeted in recent weeks, according to a report released on Friday by AAA. Gas demand hit a 30-year low this week, AAA reported, citing statistics from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and analysts expect demand to continue dropping in the coming weeks. The results of decreased demand can be seen at the pump, as the national average gas price has slid to $1.92 per gallon, AAA said.
Whether the impact of that can be seen in the air quality, however, is not exactly and open-and-shut case.
There is some caution that should be taken with interpreting the data NASA released. One reason is that NO2 levels recorded by satellites aren't the exact same as levels found at the ground level.
NO2 levels can also change through dynamical and chemical processes in the atmosphere, meaning weather can cause atmospheric NO2 readings to change day-to-day. One way this can occur is that the wind can disperse NO2 molecules.
NASA said in its report that further analysis is needed to determine the true amount NO2 levels have changed and if it is associated with changes in pollutant emissions or is a natural variation in weather.
It is also noted that satellites that keep track of NO2 levels can not see through clouds so cloudy days will result in no data being recorded.
“We all have this hunch about how air pollution has changed, the longer this goes on, the more we will see,” NASA air pollution specialist Ryan Stauffer told The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., deliveries have been largely uninhibited by social distancing measures. And in the U.S., most trucks run on diesel fuel while cars operate on unleaded fuel. In Europe, where even more significant pollution reductions have been observed, most cars and trucks run on diesel fuel, Romain Lacombe, the CEO of Plume Labs told AccuWeather earlier this week.
As Lacombe put it, "Cars only account for 9% of emissions for nitrogen dioxide in the Los Angeles area. "Trucks account for about half of them."
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Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.