Articles | Volume 22, issue 13
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8683-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8683-2022
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
06 Jul 2022
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 06 Jul 2022

Black carbon aerosol reductions during COVID-19 confinement quantified by aircraft measurements over Europe

Ovid O. Krüger, Bruna A. Holanda, Sourangsu Chowdhury, Andrea Pozzer, David Walter, Christopher Pöhlker, Maria Dolores Andrés Hernández, John P. Burrows, Christiane Voigt, Jos Lelieveld, Johannes Quaas, Ulrich Pöschl, and Mira L. Pöhlker

Related authors

Air quality model assessment in city plumes of Europe and East Asia
Adrien Deroubaix, Marco Vountas, Benjamin Gaubert, Maria Dolores Andrés Hernández, Stephan Borrmann, Guy Brasseur, Bruna Holanda, Yugo Kanaya, Katharina Kaiser, Flora Kluge, Ovid Oktavian Krüger, Inga Labuhn, Michael Lichtenstern, Klaus Pfeilsticker, Mira Pöhlker, Hans Schlager, Johannes Schneider, Guillaume Siour, Basudev Swain, Paolo Tuccella, Kameswara S. Vinjamuri, Mihalis Vrekoussis, Benjamin Weyland, and John P. Burrows
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-516,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-516, 2024
Preprint archived
Short summary
Proportional relationships between carbonaceous aerosols and trace gases in city plumes of Europe and East Asia
Adrien Deroubaix, Marco Vountas, Benjamin Gaubert, Maria Dolores Andrés Hernández, Stephan Borrmann, Guy Brasseur, Bruna Holanda, Yugo Kanaya, Katharina Kaiser, Flora Kluge, Ovid Oktavian Krüger, Inga Labuhn, Michael Lichtenstern, Klaus Pfeilsticker, Mira Pöhlker, Hans Schlager, Johannes Schneider, Guillaume Siour, Basudev Swain, Paolo Tuccella, Kameswara S. Vinjamuri, Mihalis Vrekoussis, Benjamin Weyland, and John P. Burrows
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-521,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-521, 2024
Preprint archived
Short summary
Effects of transport on a biomass burning plume from Indochina during EMeRGe-Asia identified by WRF-Chem
Chuan-Yao Lin, Wan-Chin Chen, Yi-Yun Chien, Charles C. K. Chou, Chian-Yi Liu, Helmut Ziereis, Hans Schlager, Eric Förster, Florian Obersteiner, Ovid O. Krüger, Bruna A. Holanda, Mira L. Pöhlker, Katharina Kaiser, Johannes Schneider, Birger Bohn, Klaus Pfeilsticker, Benjamin Weyland, Maria Dolores Andrés Hernández, and John P. Burrows
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2627–2647, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2627-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2627-2023, 2023
Short summary
African smoke particles act as cloud condensation nuclei in the wintertime tropical North Atlantic boundary layer over Barbados
Haley M. Royer, Mira L. Pöhlker, Ovid Krüger, Edmund Blades, Peter Sealy, Nurun Nahar Lata, Zezhen Cheng, Swarup China, Andrew P. Ault, Patricia K. Quinn, Paquita Zuidema, Christopher Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, Meinrat Andreae, and Cassandra J. Gaston
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 981–998, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-981-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-981-2023, 2023
Short summary
Strong particle production and condensational growth in the upper troposphere sustained by biogenic VOCs from the canopy of the Amazon Basin
Yunfan Liu, Hang Su, Siwen Wang, Chao Wei, Wei Tao, Mira L. Pöhlker, Christopher Pöhlker, Bruna A. Holanda, Ovid O. Krüger, Thorsten Hoffmann, Manfred Wendisch, Paulo Artaxo, Ulrich Pöschl, Meinrat O. Andreae, and Yafang Cheng
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 251–272, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-251-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-251-2023, 2023
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Aerosols | Research Activity: Field Measurements | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
High ice-nucleating particle concentrations associated with Arctic haze in springtime cold-air outbreaks
Erin N. Raif, Sarah L. Barr, Mark D. Tarn, James B. McQuaid, Martin I. Daily, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Keith N. Bower, Paul R. Field, Kenneth S. Carslaw, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 14045–14072, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14045-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14045-2024, 2024
Short summary
CCN estimations at a high-altitude remote site: role of organic aerosol variability and hygroscopicity
Fernando Rejano, Andrea Casans, Marta Via, Juan Andrés Casquero-Vera, Sonia Castillo, Hassan Lyamani, Alberto Cazorla, Elisabeth Andrews, Daniel Pérez-Ramírez, Andrés Alastuey, Francisco Javier Gómez-Moreno, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, Francisco José Olmo, and Gloria Titos
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13865–13888, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13865-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13865-2024, 2024
Short summary
Aerosol hygroscopicity over the southeast Atlantic Ocean during the biomass burning season – Part 1: From the perspective of scattering enhancement​​​​​​​
Lu Zhang, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Haochi Che, Caroline Dang, Junying Sun, Ye Kuang, Paola Formenti, and Steven G. Howell
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13849–13864, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13849-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13849-2024, 2024
Short summary
Spatial, temporal, and meteorological impact of the 26 February 2023 dust storm: increase in particulate matter concentrations across New Mexico and West Texas
Mary C. Robinson, Kaitlin Schueth, and Karin Ardon-Dryer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13733–13750, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13733-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13733-2024, 2024
Short summary
Large spatiotemporal variability in aerosol properties over central Argentina during the CACTI field campaign
Jerome D. Fast, Adam C. Varble, Fan Mei, Mikhail Pekour, Jason Tomlinson, Alla Zelenyuk, Art J. Sedlacek III, Maria Zawadowicz, and Louisa Emmons
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13477–13502, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Andreae, M. O.: Aerosols Before Pollution, Science, 315, 50–51, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1136529, 2007. a
Andreae, M. O., Afchine, A., Albrecht, R., Holanda, B. A., Artaxo, P., Barbosa, H. M. J., Borrmann, S., Cecchini, M. A., Costa, A., Dollner, M., Fütterer, D., Järvinen, E., Jurkat, T., Klimach, T., Konemann, T., Knote, C., Krämer, M., Krisna, T., Machado, L. A. T., Mertes, S., Minikin, A., Pöhlker, C., Pöhlker, M. L., Pöschl, U., Rosenfeld, D., Sauer, D., Schlager, H., Schnaiter, M., Schneider, J., Schulz, C., Spanu, A., Sperling, V. B., Voigt, C., Walser, A., Wang, J., Weinzierl, B., Wendisch, M., and Ziereis, H.: Aerosol characteristics and particle production in the upper troposphere over the Amazon Basin, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 921–961, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-921-2018, 2018. a, b
Andrés Hernández, M. D., Hilboll, A., Ziereis, H., Förster, E., Krüger, O. O., Kaiser, K., Schneider, J., Barnaba, F., Vrekoussis, M., Schmidt, J., Huntrieser, H., Blechschmidt, A.-M., George, M., Nenakhov, V., Harlass, T., Holanda, B. A., Wolf, J., Eirenschmalz, L., Krebsbach, M., Pöhlker, M. L., Kalisz Hedegaard, A. B., Mei, L., Pfeilsticker, K., Liu, Y., Koppmann, R., Schlager, H., Bohn, B., Schumann, U., Richter, A., Schreiner, B., Sauer, D., Baumann, R., Mertens, M., Jöckel, P., Kilian, M., Stratmann, G., Pöhlker, C., Campanelli, M., Pandolfi, M., Sicard, M., Gómez-Amo, J. L., Pujadas, M., Bigge, K., Kluge, F., Schwarz, A., Daskalakis, N., Walter, D., Zahn, A., Pöschl, U., Bönisch, H., Borrmann, S., Platt, U., and Burrows, J. P.: Overview: On the transport and transformation of pollutants in the outflow of major population centres – observational data from the EMeRGe European intensive operational period in summer 2017, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 5877–5924, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5877-2022, 2022. a, b, c
Ban-Weiss, G. A., McLaughlin, J. P., Harley, R. A., Lunden, M. M., Kirchstetter, T. W., Kean, A. J., Strawa, A. W., Stevenson, E. D., and Kendall, G. R.: Long-term changes in emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from on-road gasoline and diesel vehicles, Atmos. Environ., 42, 220–232, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2007.09.049, 2008. a
Ban-Weiss, G. A., Lunden, M. M., Kirchstetter, T. W., and Harley, R. A.: Measurement of black carbon and particle number emission factors from individual heavy-duty trucks, Environ. Sci. Technol., 43, 1419–1424, https://doi.org/10.1021/es8021039, 2009. a
Download
Executive editor
Krüger et al. present observations of the effect of the COVID-19 lockdowns on black carbon emissions using a combination of airborne in situ observations and models. The impact of lockdowns on emissions from transport is by now well established, however the majority of studies to date have focused on NO2 as this is a regulated pollutant and high resolution observations are available in new satellite data products. This work instead uses a state-of-the-art airborne facility (DLR HALO) to report data on black carbon, which has established impacts both as a airborne pollutant damaging to human health, and as a highly potent short-lived climate forcing agent. Data from during the European lockdown period is compared with the prior EMeRGe campaign (https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/special_issue1074.html). The authors found a decrease in BC concentrations of 48% over Western and Southern Europe, of which 7% was likely due to meteorological differences during the two campaigns and 3-9% was due to a long-term downward trend, leading them to conclude that the lockdowns were overall responsible for a reduction in ambient concentrations of 32-38%. By seizing this unique opportunity, this study offers a new and unparalleled insight into the current nature of black carbon emissions from Europe. It also demonstrates how airborne in situ measurements and models can be used in combination to study the emission and transport of pollutants in the troposphere.
Short summary
The abrupt reduction in human activities during the first COVID-19 lockdown created unprecedented atmospheric conditions. We took the opportunity to quantify changes in black carbon (BC) as a major anthropogenic air pollutant. Therefore, we measured BC on board a research aircraft over Europe during the lockdown and compared the results to measurements from 2017. With model simulations we account for different weather conditions and find a lockdown-related decrease in BC of 41 %.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint