The DOI matches its Crossref record; 55 of the 55 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
COVID-19 lockdowns cause global air pollution declines
Open accessAbstract
The lockdown response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused an unprecedented reduction in global economic and transport activity. We test the hypothesis that this has reduced tropospheric and ground-level air pollution concentrations, using satellite data and a network of >10,000 air quality stations. After accounting for the effects of meteorological variability, we find declines in the population-weighted concentration of ground-level nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 : 60% with 95% CI 48 to 72%), and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 : 31%; 95% CI: 17 to 45%), with marginal increases in ozone (O 3 : 4%; 95% CI: −2 to 10%) in 34 countries during lockdown dates up until 15 May. Except for ozone, satellite measurements of the troposphere indicate much smaller reductions, highlighting the spatial variability of pollutant anomalies attributable to complex NO x chemistry and long-distance transport of fine particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 µm (PM 2.5 ). By leveraging Google and Apple mobility data, we find empirical evidence for a link between global vehicle transportation declines and the reduction of ambient NO 2 exposure. While the state of global lockdown is not sustainable, these findings allude to the potential for mitigating public health risk by reducing “business as usual” air pollutant emissions from economic activities. Explore trends here: https://nina.earthengine.app/view/lockdown-pollution .
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone
Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., & Moore, R. (2017) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.031 · Cited by 14,719
The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale
Lelieveld, J., Evans, J. S., Fnais, M., Giannadaki, D., & Pozzer, A. (2015) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature15371 · Cited by 5,977
Self-citationA global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker)
Hale, T., Angrist, N., Goldszmidt, R., Kira, B., Petherick, A., Phillips, T., Webster, S., Cameron-Blake, E., Hallas, L., Majumdar, S., et al. (2021) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-021-01079-8 · Cited by 4,578
Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study
Gasparrini, A., Guo, Y., Hashizume, M., Lavigne, E., Zanobetti, A., Schwartz, J., Tobias, A., Tong, S., Rocklöv, J., Forsberg, B., et al. (2015) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(14)62114-0 · Cited by 2,965
Veefkind, J. P., Aben, I., McMullan, K., Förster, H., de Vries, J., Otter, G., Claas, J., Eskes, H. J., de Haan, J. F., Kleipool, Q., et al. (2012) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.09.027 · Cited by 2,648
Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through the postpandemic period
Kissler, S. M., Tedijanto, C., Goldstein, E., Grad, Y. H., & Lipsitch, M. (2020) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.abb5793 · Cited by 2,611
Global estimates of mortality associated with long-term exposure to outdoor fine particulate matter
Burnett, R., Chen, H., Szyszkowicz, M., Fann, N., Hubbell, B., Pope, C. A., Apte, J. S., Brauer, M., Cohen, A., Weichenthal, S., et al. (2018) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1803222115 · Cited by 2,504
Limb proportions show developmental plasticity in response to embryo movement
Pollard, A. S., Charlton, B. G., Hutchinson, J. R., Gustafsson, T., McGonnell, I. M., Timmons, J. A., & Pitsillides, A. A. (2017) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/srep41926 · Cited by 2,364
Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the covid-19 forced confinement
Le Quéré, C., Jackson, R. B., Jones, M. W., Smith, A. J. P., Abernethy, S., Andrew, R. M., De-Gol, A. J., Willis, D. R., Shan, Y., Canadell, J. G., et al. (2020) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x · Cited by 2,258
Hoesly, R. M., Smith, S. J., Feng, L., Klimont, Z., Janssens-Maenhout, G., Pitkanen, T., Seibert, J. J., Vu, L., Andres, R. J., Bolt, R. M., et al. (2018) · Geoscientific Model Development · doi:10.5194/gmd-11-369-2018 · Cited by 2,203
Cited by
A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker)
Hale, T., Angrist, N., Goldszmidt, R., Kira, B., Petherick, A., Phillips, T., Webster, S., Cameron-Blake, E., Hallas, L., Majumdar, S., et al. (2021) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-021-01079-8 · Cited by 4,578
Regional and global contributions of air pollution to risk of death from COVID-19
Pozzer, A., Dominici, F., Haines, A., Witt, C., Münzel, T., & Lelieveld, J. (2020) · Cardiovascular Research · doi:10.1093/cvr/cvaa288 · Cited by 463
Self-citationChu, I. Y.-H., Alam, P., Larson, H. J., & Lin, L. (2020) · Journal of Travel Medicine · doi:10.1093/jtm/taaa192 · Cited by 247
Neale, R. E., Barnes, P. W., Robson, T. M., Neale, P. J., Williamson, C. E., Zepp, R. G., Wilson, S. R., Madronich, S., Andrady, A. L., Heikkilä, A. M., et al. (2021) · Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences · doi:10.1007/s43630-020-00001-x · Cited by 225
Dog Walking before and during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown: experiences of Uk dog owners.
Owczarczak-Garstecka, S. C., Graham, T. M., Archer, D. C., & Westgarth, C. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18126315 · Cited by 43
Metadata
- Authors
- Venter, Z. S., Aunan, K., Chowdhury, S., & Lelieveld, J.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2020-07-28
- Volume
- 117
- Issue
- 32
- Pages
- 18984-18990
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W3045818358
- Cited by
- 1,081
- References
- 55
- FWCI
- 72.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: COVID-19 lockdowns cause global air pollution declines. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1073/pnas.2006853117
- The paper
- Venter, Z. S., Aunan, K., Chowdhury, S., & Lelieveld, J. (2020). COVID-19 lockdowns cause global air pollution declines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2006853117
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
