ABSTRACT
This study aims to explore the real-time impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on measured air pollution in the three largest cities of Jordan (Amman, Irbid and Zarqa). It is hypothesized that a sharp decrease in the emitted amounts of particulate matter (PM10), CO, NO2 and SO2 during COVID-19 pandemic will be obtained, this corresponds with the reduced traffic due to mandated business closures. To achieve this exploration a paired sample t-test is used to compare the concentration of these four pollutants in the three cities over the period from 15 March to 30 June during the years from 2016 to 2020. It is found that there is a significant difference between the emitted concentrations mean values of CO, PM10, SO2 and NO2 during the period of study. This was indicated by the values of p for each species, which was less than 5 % for all these pollutants. The maximum reduction in SO2 and NO2 concentration during the lockdown period was in Zarqa. Irbid city witnessed the highest percentage reduction in CO and PM10. Furthermore, the correlation test, independent variable importance of multilayer perceptron and global sensitivity analysis using Sobol analysis showed that metrological data (Humidity, wind speed, average temperature and pressure) have a direct relationship with concentrations of CO, PM10, SO2 and NO2 in Amman, Irbid and Zarqa before and after COVID-19 pandemic.