The time-reversed itself as humans are locked in their cages while birds and animals are free to live. Plenty of environmental and social changes are coming amid coronavirus pandemic and one major among them is the air pollution.
NASA satellite released a report that projects a significant reduction in air pollution over major metropolitan areas of the Northeast United States in the COVID-19 pandemic. With the pandemic spread of coronavirus, people are locked in their home and hence a huge reduction in traveling via vehicle led to this reduction in air pollution.
(Image: © NASA)
Many states across the United States have implemented the lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. While doorstep delivery of essentials made it easy for everyone to gain this practice of staying home.
The data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite shows a significant drop in atmospheric nitrogen dioxide, a harmful substance emits from burning fossil fuels in transportation and electricity generation, according to a statement from NASA.
NASA has shared a comparing nitrogen dioxide concentration graph showing averaging March data between 2015 and 2019, and the results recorded around 30% down in March 2020. The dip in nitrogen dioxide level was observed in major metropolitan areas including Washington DC, New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston, according to a statement.
The statement also convicts that the changes in the atmospheric nitrogen dioxide could be due to the less emission of pollution from vehicles or can be due to weather variations.
“Though variations in weather from year to year cause variations in the monthly means for individual years, March 2020 shows the lowest monthly atmospheric nitrogen dioxide levels of any March during the OMI data record, which spans 2005 to the present,” according to the NASA statement.