Fleeting and resilient environmental impacts of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract:

Efforts to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2 represent one of the largest and best observed abrupt changes to anthropogenic forcing of atmospheric composition and climate of the modern era. Multiple metrics show a 'pause' in human activity at an unprecedented scale. Participants engaged in the virtual workshop hosted by the Keck Institute for Space Studies identified a number of salient interactions between this abrupt change in human influence and the Earth System. Some of these interactions are likely to persist long after the pandemic wanes. We summarize the findings from the workshop and highlight the research efforts that developed out of the workshop to study how the dynamics of this unnatural experiment may inform efforts to mitigate some of the negative human impacts on the global environment