Continued isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed Europe to breathe and recover some of the lungs with the sharp drop in pollution. The Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite recorded a continued decrease in nitrogen dioxide concentrations across Europe. Compared to the same period in 2019, the fall in values ​​represents a drop of 45-50%.
According to scientists at the KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) who are monitoring air pollution in Europe in the last few months via the Copernicus satellite, the cities of Madrid, Milo and Rome have fallen by about 45%. Paris was the city that saw the most pollution drop, to 54%, during this quarantine period.
Factories and vehicles are the main sources of nitrogen dioxide emissions, which have a major impact on human health, at the respiratory level. However, experts report that their concentrations in the atmosphere vary from day to day and relative to weather conditions. Therefore, surveillance has been measured through data collected over the past few months.
There are considerable variations in the weather in all countries from one day to the next, creating a major impact on the dispersion of nitrogen dioxide, stresses Henk Eskes of KNMI. Therefore, all maps that have been released have a period of one month and with a degree of uncertainty in the order of 15%.
Descartes Labs also used satellite data to show the differences in air quality in the United States between March this year and 2019. According to the data, between March and the first week of April this year, NO2 pollution levels decrease 33% in Los Angeles, the state where the highest percentage. In New York the decline was 22%, in Seattle 19% and in Denver 15%, compared to the same period of 2019.
