NASA Finds Local Lockdowns Brought Global Ozone Reductions

  • Released Wednesday, June 9, 2021
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As the coronavirus pandemic slowed global commerce to a crawl in early 2020, emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) – which create ozone, a danger to human health and to climate – decreased 15% globally with local reductions as high as 50%, according to a study led by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As a result of the lower NOx emissions, by June 2020 global ozone levels had dropped to a level that policymakers thought it would take at least 15 years to reach by conventional means, such as regulations.

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Wednesday, June 9, 2021.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:44 PM EDT.

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