The worldwide COVID-19 lockdown impacts on global secondary inorganic aerosols and radiative budget

Abstract

Global lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) led to air pollutant emission reductions. While the COVID-19 lockdown impacts on both trace gas and total particulate pollutants have been widely investigated, secondary aerosol formation from trace gases remains unclear. To that end, we quantify the COVID-19 lockdown impacts on NOx and SO2 emissions and sulfate-nitrate-ammonium aerosols using multiconstituent satellite data assimilation and model simulations. We find that anthropogenic emissions over major polluted regions were reduced by 19 to 25% for NOx and 14 to 20% for SO2 during April 2020. These emission reductions led to 8 to 21% decreases in sulfate and nitrate aerosols over highly polluted areas, corresponding to >34% of the observed aerosol optical depth declines and a global aerosol radiative forcing of +0.14 watts per square meter relative to business-as-usual scenario. These results point to the critical importance of secondary aerosol pollutants in quantifying climate impacts of future mitigation measures.