As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the first half of 2020, humans around the world stopped moving and making, resulting in a 9% drop in the greenhouse gas emissions at the root of climate change.
As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the first half of 2020, humans around the world stopped moving and making, resulting in a 9% drop in the greenhouse gas emissions at the root of climate change.
Almost overnight, the Himalayas became visible from a distance for the first time in years. Rivers flowed free of toxic pollutants and the air sparkled with blue skies in major cities like New Delhi and Los Angeles. While internet rumors of swans and dolphins returning to Venetian canals were debunked, the idea that “nature is healing” in 2020 quickly took root.
Unfortunately, any silver lining from the pandemic remains murky in the oceans.
Nicole Lovenduski, associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and director of the Ocean Biogeochemistry Research Group at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, delved into the data and found no detectable slowing of ocean acidification due to COVID-19 emissions reductions. Even at emissions reductions four times the rate of those in the first half of 2020, the change would be barely noticeable.
Read more at: University of Colorado at Boulder
Off the coast of Hawaii, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Hawaii Ocean Time-series Station buoy makes measurements of surface ocean pressure. (Photo Credit: Al Plueddemann, WHOI.)
