A005-0024
Assessing the influence of COVID-19 on Earth’s radiative balance

Monday, 7 December 2020
Poster
Yi Ming1, Norman G Loeb2, Pu Lin3, Zhaoyi Shen4, Vaishali Naik5, Clare E. Singer6, Ryan Ward7, Fabien Paulot1, Zhibo Zhang8, Nicolas Bellouin9, Larry Wayne Horowitz5, Paul A Ginoux10 and V Ramaswamy11, (1)NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (2)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, United States, (3)NOAA GFD Lab-Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States, (4)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (5)NOAA GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States, (6)California Institute of Technology, Environmental Science and Engineering, Pasadena, CA, United States, (7)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States, (8)University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, United States, (9)University of Reading, Department of Meteorology, Reading, United Kingdom, (10)NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (11)NOAA/OAR/ GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a widespread reduction in aerosol emissions. Anecdotal effects on air quality and visibility were widely reported. Less known are the impacts on the planetary energy balance. Using satellite observations and climate model simulations, we study the underlying mechanisms of the large, precipitous decreases in solar clear-sky reflection (3.8 W m-2 or 7%) and aerosol optical depth (0.16 or 32%) over the East Asian Marginal Seas in March 2020. By separating the impacts due to meteorology and emissions in the model simulations, we find that about one-third of the anomalies can be attributed to pandemic-related emission reductions, and the rest to weather variability and long-term emission trends. The current observational and modeling capabilities will be critical for monitoring, understanding, and predicting the radiative forcing and climate impacts of the ongoing crisis.
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