Impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown on land surface temperature, aerosol, and urban heat in Europe and North America
Impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown on land surface temperature, aerosol, and urban heat in Europe and North America
The outbreak of SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) has posed a serious threat to human beings, society, and economic activities all over the world. Worldwide rigorous containment measures for limiting the spread of the virus have several beneficial environmental implications due to decreased anthropogenic emissions and air pollutants, which provide a unique opportunity to understand and quantify the human impact on atmospheric environment. In the present study, the associated changes in Land Surface Temperature (LST), aerosol, and atmospheric water vapor content were investigated over highly COVID-19 impacted areas, namely, Europe and North America. The key findings revealed a large-scale negative standardized LST anomaly during nighttime across Europe (-0.11 °C to -2.6 °C), USA (-0.70 °C) and Canada (-0.27 °C) in March-May of the pandemic year 2020 compared to the mean of 2015-2019, which can be partly ascribed to the lockdown effect. The reduced LST was corroborated with the negative anomaly of air temperature measured at meteorological stations (i.e. -0.46 °C to -0.96 °C). A larger decrease in nighttime LST was also seen in urban areas (by ∼1-2 °C) compared to rural landscapes, which suggests a weakness of the urban heat island effect during the lockdown period due to large decrease in absorbing aerosols and air pollutants. On the contrary, daytime LST increased over most parts of Europe due to less attenuation of solar radiation by atmospheric aerosols. Synoptic meteorological variability and several surface-related factors may mask these changes and significantly affect the variations in LST, aerosols and water vapor content. The changes in LST may be a temporary phenomenon during the lockdown but provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the effects of various forcing controlling factors in urban microclimate and a strong evidence base for potential environmental benefits through urban planning and policy implementation.
Aerosols, Atmospheric pollutants, COVID-19 lockdown, Land surface temperature, Urban heat island, Water vapor
Parida, Bikash Ranjan
21c6f8e7-5d6c-4d46-86e3-4e7160b4d1b5
Bar, Somnath
1e199d14-4020-46ef-9dfa-733fe5fa6082
Kaskaoutis, Dimitris
2329a211-99e2-4805-8362-69729942e83c
Pandey, Arvind Chandra
ab1750bd-2338-41d4-bb66-b4e083f221eb
Polade, Suraj D.
d695f4b3-63b9-46a8-b7bf-ea914f1e045f
Goswami, Santonu
759529fc-6220-415e-b01f-f54e5e9b054f
1 December 2021
Parida, Bikash Ranjan
21c6f8e7-5d6c-4d46-86e3-4e7160b4d1b5
Bar, Somnath
1e199d14-4020-46ef-9dfa-733fe5fa6082
Kaskaoutis, Dimitris
2329a211-99e2-4805-8362-69729942e83c
Pandey, Arvind Chandra
ab1750bd-2338-41d4-bb66-b4e083f221eb
Polade, Suraj D.
d695f4b3-63b9-46a8-b7bf-ea914f1e045f
Goswami, Santonu
759529fc-6220-415e-b01f-f54e5e9b054f
et al.
(2021)
Impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown on land surface temperature, aerosol, and urban heat in Europe and North America.
Sustainable Cities and Society, 75 (12), [103336].
(doi:10.1016/j.scs.2021.103336).
Abstract
The outbreak of SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) has posed a serious threat to human beings, society, and economic activities all over the world. Worldwide rigorous containment measures for limiting the spread of the virus have several beneficial environmental implications due to decreased anthropogenic emissions and air pollutants, which provide a unique opportunity to understand and quantify the human impact on atmospheric environment. In the present study, the associated changes in Land Surface Temperature (LST), aerosol, and atmospheric water vapor content were investigated over highly COVID-19 impacted areas, namely, Europe and North America. The key findings revealed a large-scale negative standardized LST anomaly during nighttime across Europe (-0.11 °C to -2.6 °C), USA (-0.70 °C) and Canada (-0.27 °C) in March-May of the pandemic year 2020 compared to the mean of 2015-2019, which can be partly ascribed to the lockdown effect. The reduced LST was corroborated with the negative anomaly of air temperature measured at meteorological stations (i.e. -0.46 °C to -0.96 °C). A larger decrease in nighttime LST was also seen in urban areas (by ∼1-2 °C) compared to rural landscapes, which suggests a weakness of the urban heat island effect during the lockdown period due to large decrease in absorbing aerosols and air pollutants. On the contrary, daytime LST increased over most parts of Europe due to less attenuation of solar radiation by atmospheric aerosols. Synoptic meteorological variability and several surface-related factors may mask these changes and significantly affect the variations in LST, aerosols and water vapor content. The changes in LST may be a temporary phenomenon during the lockdown but provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the effects of various forcing controlling factors in urban microclimate and a strong evidence base for potential environmental benefits through urban planning and policy implementation.
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 2 September 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 September 2021
Published date: 1 December 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Authors thanks NASA LPDAAC for providing the MODIS LST and AOD data, and Google Earth Engine (GEE) for providing the analyzing platform. We gratefully acknowledge the GMAO groups for the production of MERRA-2 datasets via GEOS. The MODIS and MERRA-2 retrievals were taken from the NASA Giovanni visualization system (https://giovanni.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/). NCEP/NCAR and ERA-Interim reanalysis are also highly appreciated, as well as various organizations for giving access to ground based meteorological data. D.G.K. acknowledges the support by the project “PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climatE change” PANACEA (MIS 5021516), funded by the Operational Program “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014–2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union.
Funding Information: B.R Parida received funding from University Grants Commission (UGC), India under the start-up Grant (F.4-5(209-FRP)/2015/BSR). S.B. received funding from UGC for undergoing doctoral research (NET-JRF fellowship: 3289/(SC)(NET-JAN2017).
Funding Information: Authors thanks NASA LPDAAC for providing the MODIS LST and AOD data, and Google Earth Engine (GEE) for providing the analyzing platform. We gratefully acknowledge the GMAO groups for the production of MERRA-2 datasets via GEOS. The MODIS and MERRA-2 retrievals were taken from the NASA Giovanni visualization system ( https://giovanni.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/ ). NCEP/NCAR and ERA-Interim reanalysis are also highly appreciated, as well as various organizations for giving access to ground based meteorological data. D.G.K. acknowledges the support by the project “PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climatE change” PANACEA (MIS 5021516), funded by the Operational Program “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014–2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
Keywords:
Aerosols, Atmospheric pollutants, COVID-19 lockdown, Land surface temperature, Urban heat island, Water vapor
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 477954
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/477954
ISSN: 2210-6707
PURE UUID: a35d9b0f-0ebe-4bfb-8ee5-98eeb19f29fa
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Date deposited: 16 Jun 2023 16:54
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 04:12
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Author:
Bikash Ranjan Parida
Author:
Somnath Bar
Author:
Dimitris Kaskaoutis
Author:
Arvind Chandra Pandey
Author:
Suraj D. Polade
Author:
Santonu Goswami
Corporate Author: et al.
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