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The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak

By using multiple satellite measurements, the changes of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)) over South Korea were investigated from January to March 2020 to evaluate the COVID-19 effect on the regional air quality. The NO(2) decrease in South Korea was found but not signifi...

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Autores principales: Koo, Ja-Ho, Kim, Jhoon, Lee, Yun Gon, Park, Sang Seo, Lee, Seoyoung, Chong, Heesung, Cho, Yeseul, Kim, Jaemin, Choi, Kyungbae, Lee, Taegyung
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7775425/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33384456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80429-4
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author Koo, Ja-Ho
Kim, Jhoon
Lee, Yun Gon
Park, Sang Seo
Lee, Seoyoung
Chong, Heesung
Cho, Yeseul
Kim, Jaemin
Choi, Kyungbae
Lee, Taegyung
author_facet Koo, Ja-Ho
Kim, Jhoon
Lee, Yun Gon
Park, Sang Seo
Lee, Seoyoung
Chong, Heesung
Cho, Yeseul
Kim, Jaemin
Choi, Kyungbae
Lee, Taegyung
author_sort Koo, Ja-Ho
collection PubMed
description By using multiple satellite measurements, the changes of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)) over South Korea were investigated from January to March 2020 to evaluate the COVID-19 effect on the regional air quality. The NO(2) decrease in South Korea was found but not significant, which indicates the effects of spontaneous social distancing under the maintenance of ordinary life. The AODs in 2020 were normally high in January, but they became lower starting from February. Since the atmosphere over Eastern Asia was unusually stagnant in January and February 2020, the AOD decrease in February 2020 clearly reveals the positive effect of the COVID-19. Considering the insignificant NO(2) decrease in South Korea and the relatively long lifetime of aerosols, the AOD decrease in South Korea may be more attributed to the improvement of the air quality in neighboring countries. In March, regional atmosphere became well mixed and ventilated over South Korea, contributing to large enhancement of air quality. While the social activity was reduced after the COVID-19 outbreak, the regional meteorology should be also examined significantly to avoid the biased evaluation of the social impact on the change of the regional air quality.
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spelling pubmed-77754252021-01-07 The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak Koo, Ja-Ho Kim, Jhoon Lee, Yun Gon Park, Sang Seo Lee, Seoyoung Chong, Heesung Cho, Yeseul Kim, Jaemin Choi, Kyungbae Lee, Taegyung Sci Rep Article By using multiple satellite measurements, the changes of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)) over South Korea were investigated from January to March 2020 to evaluate the COVID-19 effect on the regional air quality. The NO(2) decrease in South Korea was found but not significant, which indicates the effects of spontaneous social distancing under the maintenance of ordinary life. The AODs in 2020 were normally high in January, but they became lower starting from February. Since the atmosphere over Eastern Asia was unusually stagnant in January and February 2020, the AOD decrease in February 2020 clearly reveals the positive effect of the COVID-19. Considering the insignificant NO(2) decrease in South Korea and the relatively long lifetime of aerosols, the AOD decrease in South Korea may be more attributed to the improvement of the air quality in neighboring countries. In March, regional atmosphere became well mixed and ventilated over South Korea, contributing to large enhancement of air quality. While the social activity was reduced after the COVID-19 outbreak, the regional meteorology should be also examined significantly to avoid the biased evaluation of the social impact on the change of the regional air quality. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC7775425/ /pubmed/33384456 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80429-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Koo, Ja-Ho
Kim, Jhoon
Lee, Yun Gon
Park, Sang Seo
Lee, Seoyoung
Chong, Heesung
Cho, Yeseul
Kim, Jaemin
Choi, Kyungbae
Lee, Taegyung
The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak
title The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak
title_full The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak
title_fullStr The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak
title_full_unstemmed The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak
title_short The implication of the air quality pattern in South Korea after the COVID-19 outbreak
title_sort implication of the air quality pattern in south korea after the covid-19 outbreak
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7775425/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33384456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80429-4
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