Articles | Volume 14, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2141-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2141-2021
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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Cited articles

Basu, S., Guerlet, S., Butz, A., Houweling, S., Hasekamp, O., Aben, I., Krummel, P., Steele, P., Langenfelds, R., Torn, M., Biraud, S., Stephens, B., Andrews, A., and Worthy, D.: Global CO2 fluxes estimated from GOSAT retrievals of total column CO2, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 8695–8717, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-8695-2013, 2013. 
Bauwens, M., Compernolle, S., Stavrakou, T., Müller, J.‐F., van Gent, J., Eskes, H., Levelt, P. F., van der A, R., Veefkind, J. P., Vlietinck, J., Yu, H., and Zehner, C.: Impact of coronavirus outbreak on NO2 pollution assessed using TROPOMI and OMI observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 47, e2020GL087978, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087978, 2020. 
Boesch, H., Anand, J., and Di Noia, A.: Product User Guide and Specification (PUGS) – ANNEX A for products CO_2_GOS_OCFP, CH4_GOS_OCFP & CH4_GOS_OCPR (v7.2, 2009–2018), available at: http://wdc.dlr.de/C3S_312b_Lot2/Documentation/GHG/PUGS/C3S_D312b_Lot2.3.2.3-v1.0_PUGS-GHG_ANNEX-A_v3.1.pdf (last access: 17 August 2020), 2019. 
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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.
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