Can a regional-scale reduction of atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> during the COVID-19 pandemic be detected from space? A case study for East China using satellite XCO<sub>2</sub> retrievals

Buchwitz, Michael; Reuter, Maximilian; Noël, Stefan; Bramstedt, Klaus; Schneising, Oliver; Hilker, Michael; Fuentes Andrade, Blanca; Bovensmann, Heinrich; Burrows, John P.; Di Noia, Antonio; Boesch, Hartmut; Wu, Lianghai; Landgraf, Jochen; Aben, Ilse; Retscher, Christian; O'Dell, Christopher W.; Crisp, David

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2141-2021

Articles | Volume 14, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2141-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2141-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 3

Research article

|

18 Mar 2021

Research article |

| 18 Mar 2021

Can a regional-scale reduction of atmospheric CO₂ during the COVID-19 pandemic be detected from space? A case study for East China using satellite XCO₂ retrievals

Michael Buchwitz, Maximilian Reuter, Stefan Noël, Klaus Bramstedt, Oliver Schneising, Michael Hilker, Blanca Fuentes Andrade, Heinrich Bovensmann, John P. Burrows, Antonio Di Noia, Hartmut Boesch, Lianghai Wu, Jochen Landgraf, Ilse Aben, Christian Retscher, Christopher W. O'Dell, and David Crisp

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Final revised paper (published on 18 Mar 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 08 Oct 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'review of paper amt-2020-386', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Nov 2020
- AC1: 'Response to comments from Referee 1', Michael Buchwitz, 10 Feb 2021
RC2: 'Referee Comment (amt-2020-386)', Anonymous Referee #2, 19 Dec 2020
- AC2: 'Response to comments from Referee 2', Michael Buchwitz, 10 Feb 2021
RC3: 'Referee comment', Anonymous Referee #3, 17 Jan 2021
- AC3: 'Response to comments from Referee 3', Michael Buchwitz, 10 Feb 2021

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Michael Buchwitz on behalf of the Authors (10 Feb 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (10 Feb 2021) by Ralf Sussmann

AR by Michael Buchwitz on behalf of the Authors (10 Feb 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (11 Feb 2021) by Ralf Sussmann

AR by Michael Buchwitz on behalf of the Authors (11 Feb 2021) Manuscript

Short summary

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reduced anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions during 2020 in large parts of the world. We have used a small ensemble of satellite retrievals of column-averaged CO₂ (XCO₂) to find out if a regional-scale reduction of atmospheric CO₂ can be detected from space. We focus on East China and show that it is challenging to reliably detect and to accurately quantify the emission reduction, which only results in regional XCO₂ reductions of about 0.1–0.2 ppm.

Can a regional-scale reduction of atmospheric CO2 during the COVID-19 pandemic be detected from space? A case study for East China using satellite XCO2 retrievals

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Interactive discussion

Peer-review completion

Can a regional-scale reduction of atmospheric CO₂ during the COVID-19 pandemic be detected from space? A case study for East China using satellite XCO₂ retrievals