
Nitrogen dioxide emissions drop over Italy - Tomte
http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2020/03/Coronavirus_nitrogen_dioxide_emissions_drop_over_Italy
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Zenst
Reduced travel and industry will see this happen and saw this in China,
globally over the year the effect will be interesting and whilst it will do
wonders for the climate. One aspect that I'm currently pondering is the winter
20/21\. Reason being that it has been shown that less planes flying means
temperature difference day/night, slightly warmer during day, but also colder
at night. As we saw for the days post 9/11 in America.

So whilst the effect upon climate from this virus is going to be notable, what
will the impact upon the 20/21 winter, will it make it more inclined to be
colder (normal for many parts). That is the aspect that intrigues me.

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bamboozled
This is 100% anecdotal but I saw it snow the other day in Tokyo in March and
it’s been very cold. It’s been a while since it’s snowed in March I’m sure.

I’ve also noticed the Japanese alps we’re having a super bad winter until a
few weeks back when things kicked into gear and the snow started falling
again.

I have absolutely no idea but Is it possible to have a short term decrease in
emissions change the weather like this ?

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Zenst
Yes you will get events outside the norm, it is not the single events but the
whole period average you need to look at, like looking at a single day or week
of weather note and remembering the whole period around that single event. Yet
the whole winter period would be warmer. Then you can have one part of a large
country have it colder than normal and yet the other parts has it warmer and
the average for that whole country being warmer, yet for those in the colder
part they will disagree.

Yes you will get events outside the norm, it is not the single events but the
whole period average you need to look at, like looking at a single day or week
of weather note and remembering the whole period around that single event. Yet
the whole winter period would be warmer. Then you can have one part of a large
country have it colder than normal and yet the other parts has it warmer and
the average for that whole country being warmer, yet for those in the colder
part they will disagree.

EDIT ADD: >I have absolutely no idea but Is it possible to have a short term
decrease in emissions change the weather like this ?

I don't think this is going be as short term and will certainly playout
throughout the year at least. LongTerm: The World will be a different place a
year from now, hard to speculate, but this is WW3 The World vs a Virus

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selimthegrim
You double pasted

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Zenst
DOh - thanks, alas missed edit window, my bad :()

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paganel
I really do hope that this event will give a big blow to the mass-tourism
industry. It doesn't feel right to catch a flight from Europe to half-way
around the world (Thailand, let's say) for just a few hundred euros, there are
lots of externalities not included in that price. To say nothing of the Dutch-
disease-like effects brought by mass tourism to those tourist places.

~~~
fyfy18
Business travel is also something we should look to curtail. I expect there
are a high number of business trips that could be replaced with virtual
meetings if they needed to be (say, if there was a global pandemic restricting
travel). In the US around 1/5 of domestic flights are for business purposes
[0]. If you also include people who relocated for work, and are travelling to
visit family, I expect it would be much higher.

[0] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/207103/forecasted-
number...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/207103/forecasted-number-of-
domestic-trips-in-the-us/)

~~~
squiggleblaz
With respect, travelling to relocate for work or to visit family seem like
they fall into the category of necessary flights - I mean, if you said to
everyone "you can only take 10 return flights in your life from now on",
people would spend them on relocating and family visits with considerable
ease. They would think twice about that ski trip though.

As you say, the average business trip is more about status and could easily be
dropped. But it's not fair to put relocation for work into that category.

~~~
fyfy18
My point about relocation is a lot of people relocate for jobs that they could
easily do at home or in a satellite office. I get that some people want to
move so they aren't stuck in the same town of pop. 1,200 all their life
(that's my situation), but I don't think most people are in that situation.

Say you were raised in Wichita, KS. I've never been there, but given its size
I assume you can have a pretty good lifestyle living there. However if you
want to work in tech, media, journalism, law, finance or a whole bunch of
other industries, you would really be limiting your opportunities if you
stayed there.

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taeric
This lines up with a hypothesis I've got that this is causing severe cases in
places where there is a high baseline of lung damage. Either from asthma or
other genetic conditions, or from exposure to poor air quality.

Such that these lock downs are preventing more bad cases, but not by
preventing the spread of covid, but by limiting exposure to other things. In
this case, it could be lowering emissions period, which makes the entire place
a bit more hospitable.

Which implies several things. One, the lock down for the states could be
superfluous. Most places here have better air already.

Two, covid is already everywhere. The exponential growth we are seeing
happened a couple months ago, such that now we are just seeing how fast we can
deploy testing.

Three, we really need to focus on a cleaner environment. The old saying of
"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is clearly false (if this
hypothesis is true), it makes you easier to be killed.

As I've said in another post, I expect I'm wrong in this. So would love to or
how/why.

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KarlKemp
Air quality in (parts of) China is much worse than any part of Europe, even
northern Italy. To be proportional, deaths in China would need to be a
magnitude higher. On the other end of the scale, Switzerland would need to be
almost free of fatalities, etc.

You also don’t have much of a model. It would be strange for one virus to show
an extreme sensitivity to existing environmental lung damage when all our
experiences show either linear or at worst multiplicative compounding.

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snazz
Smoking is also more common (to my knowledge) in Italy. That could have
something to do with it.

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cglace
More common than China? I highly doubt it.

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snazz
I stand corrected. The Wikipedia article shows China much higher than Italy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette_consumption_per_capita)

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idiocratic
Even more importantly, I assume regions affected by bad air quality like North
Italy are also the worst with regard to cronic respiratory issues in the
general population, which makes the situation a lot worse.

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sktrdie
TIL: Northern Italy was pretty fucked up emission-wise even before Corona
kicked in.

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sschueller
I wonder if the extremely high fatality count in Italy is due to the hight air
pollution putting people in a higher risk.

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blauditore
Actually, fatality is most likely not as high as it appears from (confirmed)
cases compared to deaths.

A large fraction of cases may go unrecorded because people only have minor
symptoms and don't get hospitalized. In places with more extensive testing,
like South Korea, deaths make up < 1% of confirmed cases. And even there, it's
assumed that not all of them have been recorded.

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rimliu
After two weeks the air over Europe will be cleanest since the long long long
time ago.

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KarlKemp
Considering the progress made over the last decades, we are probably setting
new records (since the industrial revolution) for clean air constantly.

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MiguelVieira
Same in the California Bay Area

[https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/current-air-
quality...](https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/current-air-quality/air-
monitoring-data/#/airp?id=126&style=chart&zone=-1&date=2020-03-13&view=weekly)

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kurthr
They're turning off the refineries...

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bamboozled
We’re another type of virus on this planet, we need to remember that and
remember what it feels like to be under attack by one. Hopefully we then
adjust behaviour accordingly.

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Onanymous
While sharing your view of the situation I do not see anything to back your
hopes.

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intpete
Fd them have different too

