Covid-19 and it’s affect on the environment: A rare positive amidst this catastrophe

Air pollution way down over Northeast, NASA satellite images appear to show

Other major cities in the Northeast outside the I-95 corridor that saw major drops in NO2 levels included Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

AccuWeather Global Weather Center – April 13, 2020 – Major cities across the Northeast are now seeing significant improvement in air quality similar to the improvements seen in Italy and China during coronavirus lockdowns.

NASA satellite data has measured Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels over the last several weeks using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), which is part of NASA’s Aura satellite.

NO2 is an air pollutant that can be used to indicate human activity because it is emitted from burning diesel, gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels that are used when driving cars or emitted from smokestacks by generating energy. And Americans have been driving a lot less as stay-at-home measures have become widespread around the nation.

Many areas in the Northeast have enacted some of the strictest stay-at-home orders. Places like New York, which is the epicenter of the outbreak, and New Jersey have severely restricted movement by the public for close to a month.

Typically in March, NO2 levels of around 10.0 (¹⁶ molecules/cm²) from New York City would reach as far as 25 miles, reaching into places like Morristown, New Jersey. In March 2020, NO2 levels that high barely reached the New Jersey border with Morristown seeing an NO2 level of around 6.0.

The I-95 corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston, which include Baltimore, Philadelphia, Hartford and Providence, saw a 30% decrease of NO2 levels in March 2020 compared to the 2015-2019 March average.

Other major cities in the Northeast outside the I-95 corridor that saw major drops in NO2 levels included Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

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