Articles | Volume 25, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4391-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4391-2025
Research article
 | 
23 Apr 2025
Research article |  | 23 Apr 2025

Large reductions in satellite-derived and modelled European lower-tropospheric ozone during and after the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2022)

Matilda A. Pimlott, Richard J. Pope, Brian J. Kerridge, Richard Siddans, Barry G. Latter, Lucy J. Ventress, Wuhu Feng, and Martyn P. Chipperfield

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Cited articles

Bouarar, I., Gaubert, B., Brasseur, G. P., Steinbrecht, W., Doumbia, T., Tilmes, S., Liu, Y., Stavrakou, T., Deroubaix, A., Darras, S., Granier, C., Lacey, F., Müller, J-L., Shi, X., Elguindi, N., and Wang., T.: Ozone Anomalies in the Free Troposphere During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, 1–11, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094204, 2021. 
Callies, J., Corpaccioli, E., Eisinger, M., Hahne, A., and Lefebvre, A.: GOME-2-Metop's second-generation sensor for operational ozone monitoring, ESA Bulletin, 102, 28–36, https://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bullet102/Callies102.pdf (last access: 1 May 2020), 2000. 
Chang, K. L., Cooper, O. R., Gaudel, A., Allaart, M., Ancellet, G., Clark, H., Godin-Beekmann, S., Leblanc, T., Van Malderen, R., Nédélec, P., Petropavlovskikh, I., Steinbrecht, W., Stübi, R., Tarasick, D. W., and Torres, C.: Impact of the COVID-19 Economic Downturn on Tropospheric Ozone Trends: An Uncertainty Weighted Data Synthesis for Quantifying Regional Anomalies Above Western North America and Europe, AGU Adv., 3, 2, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021AV000542, 2022. 
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Clark, H., Bennouna, Y., Tsivlidou, M., Wolff, P., Sauvage, B., Barret, B., Le Flochmoën, E., Blot, R., Boulanger, D., Cousin, J.-M., Nédélec, P., Petzold, A., and Thouret, V.: The effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on the composition of the troposphere as seen by In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS) at Frankfurt, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 16237–16256, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16237-2021, 2021. 
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Short summary
Globally, lockdowns were implemented to limit the spread of COVID-19, leading to a decrease in emissions of key air pollutants. Here, we use novel satellite data and a chemistry model to investigate the impact of the pandemic on tropospheric ozone (O3), a key pollutant, in 2020. Overall, we found substantial decreases of up to 20 %, two-thirds of which came from emission reductions, while one-third was due to a decrease in the stratospheric O3 flux into the troposphere.
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