When COVID-19 pandemic began in the US, counties and cities across the nation imposed stay at home orders, closed schools or imposed travel restrictions.
From March 2020 onward, many Americans hung up car keys and settled into their homes for work and school. Traffic patterns dramatically changed, and previously smog filled vistas became clearer.
One silver lining of the otherwise deadly and economically distressing COVID pandemic might be the opportunity for Americans to explore a future less dependent on automobiles and how it might impact the environment and air quality. The pandemic offers a natural air pollution control experiment for air quality researchers. However, the results are puzzling for those hoping to reduce ozone, a common contributor to poor air quality, in urban environments.
At NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) in College Park, Maryland, atmospheric researchers were eager to study the impacts of reduced automobile traffic on the atmosphere. Among other atmospheric modeling, ARL monitors pollution near a major highway in Maryland, obtains atmospheric samples via aircraft and runs the Climate Reference Network to measure long term baselines for climate variables. Dr. Patrick Campbell, an ARL researcher who is also an assistant professor at George Mason University, collaborated with a number of ARL and other NOAA researchers to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 economic slowdown on air pollution in the nation.
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