Societal shifts due to COVID-19 reveal large-scale complexities and feedbacks between atmospheric chemistry and climate change.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 global pandemic and associated government lockdowns dramatically altered human activity, providing a window into how changes in individual behavior, enacted en masse, impact atmospheric composition. The resulting reductions in anthropogenic activity represent an unprecedented event that yields a glimpse into a future where emissions to the atmosphere are reduced. Furthermore, the abrupt reduction in emissions during the lockdown periods led to clearly observable changes in atmospheric composition, which provide direct insight into feedbacks between the Earth system and human activity. While air pollutants and greenhouse gases share many common anthropogenic sources, there is a sharp difference in the response of their atmospheric concentrations to COVID-19 emissions changes, d

SUBMITTER: Laughner JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8609622 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature