Pandemic experiments prove CO₂ monitoring networks provide real-time emission information

In April 2020, during the height of lockdowns designed to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, carbon dioxide emissions in the Los Angeles and Washington, DC–Baltimore areas fell by about 30% relative to the 2 previous years (Geophys. Res. Lett. 2021, DOI: 10.1029/2021GL092744). The data come from CO₂ sensor networks established in the two regions by researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

A previous study measured the same drop in CO₂ emissions in the San Francisco Bay Area during that region’s shelter-in-place order (Geophys. Res. Lett. 2020, DOI: 10.1029/2020GL090037). In all three cases, a decrease in passenger-vehicle traffic appears to have been the biggest reason for the reductions, which have since been reversed as people again ventured out of their homes.

These transient but dramatic emission changes gave chemists an opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of their CO₂ monitoring networks. Urban CO₂ emissions are typically tallied indirectly each year using indicators, like gasoline sales, that don’t detect emission changes from day to day or week to week. The pandemic-era studies show that sensor networks that directly measure changes in CO₂ concentration in cities can make information available much more rapidly—in near real time, says NIST’s Kimberly Mueller, one of the new study’s authors. “We’re trying to get data that could be useful for cities and city stakeholders,” she says.