A recent satellite analysis suggests that the COVID-19 lockdown is reducing two pollutants but increasing another. With so many people working from home or sheltering in place, a reduction in automobile emissions is one potentially positive outcome of the pandemic, even if it is temporary.
The American Geophysical Union’s journal Geophysical Research Letters recently published two papers that take a look at the effect of lockdowns on air quality. They show that, on the one hand, levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter pollution over China, Western Europe, and the United States have fallen dramatically due to lockdown measures.