Despite major achievements in air quality improvement in both Germany and the EU within the last 65 years the process of improving the air quality is far from being completed and have not yet come to a desirable end.Wood heating, energy production, animal husbandry as well as agriculture and especially the treatment of the heavily desiccated soil in spring played a further role and substantially contributed to the regional and local exposure. The Corona lockdown had reduced emissions of some major sources such as the private transport, others in turn had not been affected at all.Depending on the weather conditions the same extent of emissions per area unit can lead to different concentrations of local air pollutants. Consequently, according to statements of the German Meteorological Service the months March and April 2020 due to high-pressure weather conditions were markedly dry and sunny compared to the long-term average which favoured the accumulation of air pollutants. Rain, increased wind speed and a strong vertical mixing contribute to the air quality improvement whereas particles and trace gases can accumulate significantly when there are dryness and inverse weather conditions (at a lower boundary layer) - as it was the case in spring 2020. Meteorological influences are constantly possible when describing the relation between emissions and imissions they are further considered when assessing the local air quality. The impact of marine or arctic air masses, corresponding to cleaner air masses can reduce observed regional air pollution. All things considered, long-range transport can lead to higher or lower local loads. As a result, the local reduction of the emissions had been offset or even overcompensated. For instance, forest and land fire in Eastern Europe during the dry and warm high-pressure weather conditions in March and April had led to the increase of smoke particulates in Central Europe. On the other hand, the long-range atmospheric transport had brought polluted air masses to Germany specifically during the lockdown.
Due to overlapping effects the situation of the local air pollution at times did not significantly improve during the Corona lockdown: On the one hand, some of the local emissions - but not all of them - had declined in the course of the lockdown (see also point (4)).For their emissions the transport sector is largely responsible through exhaust gases as direct engine emission as well as through articles not directly stemming from the engine such as brake and tyre wear. Particulate matter and nitrogen oxides are key components of air pollution in Germany.In general, problems of air quality in Germany, Europe and worldwide are real and a major threat for human health, ecosystem integrity as well as climate.The Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research because of its proven scientific expertise in the fields of Chemistry and Physics of the Atmosphere, remote sensing and the atmospheric modelling takes a stand on air pollution at times of SARS-CoV-2 as follows: This is rather a fictitious debate driven by certain interests as could be seen most recently in a debate in the German Bundestag on 18 June 2020, where not only lobby associations and political parties were involved, but also self-proclaimed experts. It was then, at times, concluded, that poor air quality could not have been caused by car traffic emissions. The COVID-19 pandemic has been taken as an opportunity to search for impacts of reduced atmospheric pollutant emissions during the lockdown and whether air quality accordingly improved based on reduced emissions.Īs discussed in the media often a clear connection between reduced emissions and better air quality was not identified. TROPOS statement by Hartmut Herrmann, Alfred Wiedensohler, Dominik van Pinxteren, Ulla Wandinger, Ina Tegen und Andreas Macke from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), Permoserstr.
The local air quality is always a result of emissions, chemical processes and air pollutant transport
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