The effect of COVID-19 restrictions on atmospheric new particle formation in Beijing

During the COVID-19 lockdown, the dramatic reduction of anthropogenic emissions provided a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of reduced anthropogenic activity and primary emissions on atmospheric chemical processes and the consequent formation of secondary pollutants. Here, we utilize comprehensive observations to examine the response of atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) to the changes in the atmospheric chemical cocktail. We find that the main clustering process was unaffected by the drastically reduced traffic emissions, and the formation rate of 1.5 nm particles remained unaltered. However, particle survival probability was enhanced due to an increased particle growth rate (GR) during the lockdown period, explaining the enhanced NPF activity in earlier studies. For GR at 1.5–3 nm, sulfuric acid (SA) was the main contributor at high temperatures, whilst there were unaccounted contributing vapors at low temperatures. For GR at 3–7 and 7–15 nm, oxygenated organic molecules (OOMs) played a major role. Surprisingly, OOM composition and volatility were insensitive to the large change of atmospheric NOx concentration;instead the associated high particle growth rates and high OOM concentration during the lockdown period were mostly caused by the enhanced atmospheric oxidative capacity. Overall, our findings suggest a limited role of traffic emissions in NPF.

The effect of urban morphological characteristics on the spatial variation of PM2.5 air quality in downtown Nanjing.

The effects of the urban morphological characteristics on the spatial variation of near-surface PM2.5 air quality were examined. Unlike previous studies, we performed the analyses in real urban environments using continuous observations covering the whole scale of urban densities typically found in cities. We included data from 31 measurement stations divided into 8 different wind sectors with individually defined morphological characteristics leading to highly varying urban characteristics. The urban morphological characteristics explained up to 73% of the variance in normalized PM2.5 concentrations in street canyons, indicating that the spatial variation of the near-surface PM2.5 air quality was mostly defined by the characteristics studied. The fraction of urban trees nearby the stations was found to be the most important urban morphological characteristic in explaining the PM2.5 air quality, followed by the height-normalized roughness length as the second important parameter. An increase in the fraction of trees within 50 m of the stations from 25 percentile to 75 percentile (i.e. by the interquartile range, IQR) increased the normalized PM2.5 concentration by up to 24% in the street canyons. In open areas, an increase in the trees by the IQR actually decreased the normalized PM2.5 by 6% during the pre-COVID period. An increase in the height-normalized roughness length by the IQR increased the normalized PM2.5 by 9% in the street canyons. The results obtained in this study can help urban planners to identify the key urban characteristics affecting the near-surface PM2.5 air quality and also help researchers to evaluate how representative the existing measurement stations are compared to other parts of the cities.

Evolution of organic carbon during COVID-19 lockdown period: Possible contribution of nocturnal chemistry.

Carbonaceous aerosol is one of the main components of atmospheric particulate matter, which is of great significance due to its role in climate change, earth's radiation balance, visibility, and human health. In this work, carbonaceous aerosols were measured in Shijiazhuang and Beijing using the OC/EC analyzer from December 1, 2019 to March 15, 2020, which covered the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The observed results show that the gas-phase pollutants, such as NO, NO2, and aerosol-phase pollutants (Primary Organic Compounds, POC) from anthropogenic emissions, were significantly reduced during the lockdown period due to limited human activities in North China Plain (NCP). However, the atmospheric oxidation capacity (Ox/CO) shows a significantly increase during the lockdown period. Meanwhile, additional sources of nighttime Secondary Organic Carbon (SOC), Secondary Organic Aerosol (SOA), and babs, BrC(370 nm) are observed and ascribed to the nocturnal chemistry related to NO3 radical. The Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF) analysis indicates that the southeast areas of the NCP region contributed more to the SOC during the lockdown period than the normal period. Our results highlight the importance of regional nocturnal chemistry in SOA formation.

Emerging Investigator Series: COVID-19 lockdown effects on aerosol particle size distributions in northern Italy.

The lockdown measures implemented to curb the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy reduced human mobility dramatically, which resulted in a marked decline in traffic intensity. In this study, we present the effect of lockdown measures on several air pollutants, particle number size distribution as well as on regional new particle formation (NPF) frequency in the Po Valley (northern Italy). The results show that during the lockdown period, concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitric oxide (NO), benzene (C6H6), and toluene (C7H8) decreased, while ozone (O3) concentrations mildly increased as compared to the corresponding period in 2016-2019. Unlike gaseous pollutants, particulate matter mass concentrations (PM2.5 and PM10) showed no significant changes. The impact of lockdown measures on particle number size distributions were also quite limited. During the lockdown period, the number concentrations of 10-25 and 25-50 nm primary particles were reduced by 66% and 34%, respectively, at the regional background site (Ispra) but surprisingly there was no difference during and after lockdown at the urban background site (Modena). Conversely, the NPF frequency was exceptionally high, 70%, in Modena during the lockdown as compared to values (22-26%) observed for the same period in 2006 and 2009, while NPF frequency in Ispra only slightly increased compared to the same period in 2016-2019. The particle growth rates, however, were slightly lower during the lockdown at both sites compared to other periods. The study shows that a drastic decrease in traffic had little influence on particulate pollution levels in the Po Valley, suggesting that other sources and processes also have a prominent impact on particle number and particulate matter mass concentration in this region.

Opinion: Gigacity – a source of problems or the new way to sustainable development

The eastern part of China as a whole is practically a gigacity;it is a conglomeration of megacities with circa 650 million inhabitants. The gigacity, with its emissions, processes in pollution cocktail, numerous feedbacks and interactions, has a crucial and big impact on regional air quality within itself and on global climate. A large-scale research and innovation program is needed to meet the interlinked grand challenges in this gigacity and to serve as a platform for finding pathways for sustainable development of the whole globe.

Indoor Model Simulation for COVID-19 Transport and Exposure.

Transmission of respiratory viruses is a complex process involving emission, deposition in the airways, and infection. Inhalation is often the most relevant transmission mode in indoor environments. For severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the risk of inhalation transmission is not yet fully understood. Here, we used an indoor aerosol model combined with a regional inhaled deposited dose model to examine the indoor transport of aerosols from an infected person with novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to a susceptible person and assess the potential inhaled dose rate of particles. Two scenarios with different ventilation rates were compared, as well as adult female versus male recipients. Assuming a source strength of 10 viruses/s, in a tightly closed room with poor ventilation (0.5 h-1), the respiratory tract deposited dose rate was 140-350 and 100-260 inhaled viruses/hour for males and females; respectively. With ventilation at 3 h-1 the dose rate was only 30-90 viruses/hour. Correcting for the half-life of SARS-CoV-2 in air, these numbers are reduced by a factor of 1.2-2.2 for poorly ventilated rooms and 1.1-1.4 for well-ventilated rooms. Combined with future determinations of virus emission rates, the size distribution of aerosols containing the virus, and the infectious dose, these results could play an important role in understanding the full picture of potential inhalation transmission in indoor environments.