The covid-19 pandemic, started in january 2020 at wuhan, the capital of hubei province located in central china, has been rapidly evolving and caused unforeseen and unprecedented disturbance to both…

This is a $99,640.82 grant awarded by NASA through the Rapid Response and Novel Research in Earth Science (RRNES) solicitation to The Research Foundation for the State University of New York (RF SUNY) to conduct research on the environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposed work will: 1) constrain atmospheric dispersion patterns in three air basins using satellite data, 2) estimate emissions and lifetime of nitrogen oxides, and 3) analyze time series data on emissions from 2004 to 2021. This research directly responds to the RRNES solicitation's objectives of making quantitative connections between changes in anthropogenic forcings and the related Earth system environmental response to the pandemic. The award does not utilize a set-aside. RF SUNY is the prime contractor, leveraging its expertise in scientific research administration to support this NASA-funded project focused on understanding the atmospheric impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

The covid-19 pandemic, started in january 2020 at wuhan, the capital of hubei province located in central china, has been rapidly evolving and caused unforeseen and unprecedented disturbance to both the human societies and the earth system. To slow down the spread of this pandemic, drastic measures have been taken worldwide, which have significantly reduced emissions in many key source regions and are making rapid and potentially long-lasting impact to atmospheric chemistry. The proposed research will consist of (1) constraining the atmospheric dispersion patterns for three air basins (PO valley in italy, jianghan plain in china, and south coast air basin in USA) using a long-lifetime species, CO observed by tropomi, (2) estimating emission and lifetime of NOX that is CO-emitted with CO at air basin scales using both tropomi and OMI observations, and (3) applying time series analysis on the derived NOX emission and lifetime data from 2004 to 2021. The proposed research directly responds to the NASA rapid response and novel research in earth science (rrnes) solicitation (a.28) by making quantitative connections between changes in anthropogenic forcings, e.g., emissions, and the related earth system environmental response to the covid-19 pandemic. By combining high-resolution tropomi data with long-term record from OMI, we are addressing current changes as part of regional or global budgets.