The COVID-19 lockdown: a unique perspective into heterogeneous impacts of transboundary pollution on snow and ice darkening across the Himalayas

The Tibetan Plateau holds the largest mass of snow and ice outside of the polar regions. The deposition of light-absorbing particles (LAPs) including mineral dust, black carbon and organic carbon and the resulting positive radiative forcing on snow (RFS [Formula: see text]) substantially contributes to glacier retreat. Yet how anthropogenic pollutant emissions affect Himalayan RFS [Formula: see text] through transboundary transport is currently not well known. The COVID-19 lockdown, resulting in a dramatic decline in human activities, offers a unique test to understand the transboundary mechanisms of RFS [Formula: see text]. This study employs multiple satellite data from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer and ozone monitoring instrument, as well as a coupled atmosphere–chemistry–snow model, to reveal the high spatial heterogeneities in anthropogenic emissions-induced RFS [Formula: see text] across the Himalaya during the Indian lockdown in 2020. Our results show that the reduced anthropogenic pollutant emissions during the Indian lockdown were responsible for 71.6% of the reduction in RFS [Formula: see text] on the Himalaya in April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The contributions of the Indian lockdown-induced human emission reduction to the RFS [Formula: see text] decrease in the western, central, and eastern Himalayas were 46.8%, 81.1%, and 110.5%, respectively. The reduced RFS [Formula: see text] might have led to 27 Mt reduction in ice and snow melt over the Himalaya in April 2020. Our findings allude to the potential for mitigating rapid glacial threats by reducing anthropogenic pollutant emissions from economic activities.