PhD students Bianca Mihalache and Robert Chirițescu, research assistants in the IceSafari project, presented their research at the EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference 2022 in Brussels, Belgium, on 19-23 September 2022.
Title: Air Pollution by CO and NO2 before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania as result from Ground-Based Measurements and Satellite Data
Authors: Robert Chirițescu, Bianca Mihalache, Gabriela Iorga
Abstract: COVID-19 has been a global problem since its beginning. In Romania, in order to slow down the spread of the virus, the government was forced to take a series of restrictive measures that affected both the economic and social environment. As a result of these measures, the concentrations of air pollutants have decreased significantly, especially when the lockdown was established.
The aim of this study is to compare the mass concentrations of CO and NO2 using both ground-based measurements from National Air Quality Network and satellite-derived observations from TROPOMI instrument onboard of Sentinel 5P during 2019 and 2020 for 33 most important cities in Romania that have a significant impact on their surrounding regions.. A special attention was paid to Bucharest, the capital of Romania, most crowded and developed city.
In order to improve the accuracy of satellite estimations we used multiple regression models, considering ground-level measurements, additional variables: socio-economic data (GDP, GDP/capita, resident population) and local or model-assimilated meteorological information. This study can be beneficial to prospective studies aiming to mitigate the air pollution in the larger context of the economic system.
More information can be found on the conference website: https://www.eumetsat.int/eumetsat-meteorological-satellite-conference-2022
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