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CLIMATE LOCKDOWN HOW TO

Looking further ahead to 2030, simple climate models have estimated that global temperatures will only be around 0.01☌ lower as a result of COVID-19 than if countries followed the emissions pledges they already had in place at the height of the pandemic. The impact on global temperatures was short-lived and very small (just 0.03☌), but it was still bigger than anything caused by lockdown-related changes in ozone, CO₂ or aviation. Despite the clear and quiet skies, research I was involved in found that lockdown actually had a slight warming effect in spring 2020: as industry ground to a halt, air pollution dropped and so did the ability of aerosols to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. No dramatic effect on climate change: In both the short and long term, the pandemic will have less effect on efforts to tackle climate change than many people had hoped.Meanwhile, as the pandemic progressed, the Carbon Monitor project established methods for tracking CO₂ emissions in close to real time, giving us a valuable new way to do this kind of science. This was followed by a second and smaller dip representing the second wave in late 2020/early 2021. This is reflected in our latest emissions estimate, which shows, following a limited bounce back after the first lockdown, a fairly steady growth in global emissions during the second half of 2020. The latest Google mobility data shows that although daily activity hasn’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, it has recovered to some extent. This was soon followed by research by my own team, which used Google and Apple mobility data to reflect changes in ten different pollutants, while a third study again tracked CO₂ emissions using data on fossil fuel combustion and cement production. By May 2020, a landmark study combined government lockdown policies and activity data from around the world to predict a 7% fall in CO₂ emissions by the end of the year, a figure later confirmed by the Global Carbon Project. In other words, if we knew what the emissions were from various economic sectors or countries pre-pandemic, and we knew by how much activity had fallen, we could assume that their emissions had fallen by the same amount. We used information on lockdown as a mirror for global emissions. So climate scientists set about looking for other data that might indicate how CO₂ was changing. When many lockdowns were beginning in March 2020, the next comprehensive Global Carbon Budget setting out the year’s emissions trends was not due until the end of the year.

CLIMATE LOCKDOWN HOW TO

Climate science can operate in real time: The pandemic made us think on our feet about how to get around some of the difficulties of monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, and CO₂ in particular, in real time.

There have been many monumental changes since then, but for those of us who work as climate scientists this period gave us some new and unexpected insights.ĬLIMATE SCIENTIST PIERS FORSTER: “ Here are three things we have learned”: Satellite photos showed COVID-19 lockdowns have impacted global emissions. Here’s how lockdowns slashed global emissions, according to NASA. This began a sudden and unprecedented drop in human activity, as much of the world went into lockdown and factories stopped operating, cars kept their engines off and planes were grounded. Climate scientist Piers Forster explains the three major things we’ve learned from the Covid Lockdown as follows: “The planet had already warmed by around 1.2℃ since pre-industrial times when the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic on March 11 2020. The sudden and unprecedented drop in human activity during lockdown, gave scientists a unique opportunity to study the planet, and climate change.įrom the speed in which climate science operates in to lockdown’s initial warming effect, the period has offered some unexpected insights. Piers Forster is Professor of Physical Climate Change, Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of LeedsĬovid lockdowns created a drop in road traffic, and car emissions around the world.

WHAT THE ARTICLE SAYS: A year into the pandemic: 3 things we’ve learnt about the planet ARTICLE#1: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/ THE CONVERSATION/ PIERS FORSTER: MARCH 2021