Some cities see carbon dioxide levels drop by 45-50% compared to the same period last year, data received by the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite from the European Union’s Copernicus program suggests.
This decrease occurs coinciding with the confinement measures decreed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carbon dioxide
The new images show nitrogen dioxide concentrations from March 13 to April 13, 2020, compared to average concentrations from March to April 2019 .
Scientists at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) have been monitoring air pollution in Europe in recent months using data from the Tropomi instrument on the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite .
Madrid, Milan and Rome saw declines of around 45%, while Paris saw a 54% drop, coinciding with the strict quarantine measures in place across Europe .
As Henk Eskes from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) explains:
Averaging data over longer periods of time allows us to see clearer changes in concentrations due to human activity. For this reason, the maps show the concentrations during a monthly period and have an uncertainty of 15% that reflects the climatic variability that is not taken into account in the monthly averages used.