تأثير جائحة كورونا (كوفيد-19)‎ في تغير تركيز ثنائي أكسيد النيتروجين التروبوسفيري على شبه الجزيرة العربية و دولة الكويت

الملخص EN

Air quality is measured by gases concentration.

nitrogen dioxide(NO2) is one of the gases that have high concentration above cities as a result of human activities such as burning fossil fuels, industry, and daily traffic activities.

the high concentrations of NO2 cause many environmental and health damages, making it’s spatial and temporal distribution an important requirement.

traditionally, the concentration of NO2 is measured by fixed sensors on ground stations, this method is very useful, but it is limited to regarding the spatial distribution of small scale.

remote sensing has developed methods to measure the NO2 concentration in the troposphere through the interaction of the constituents atoms in the atmosphere with the electromagnetic radiation received from the sun, which can be detected by the installed sensors on the satellites over large geographical areas.

the European space agency (ESA) in cooperation with other parties has developed a family of satellites to understand and study the earth.

this family is known as sentinel and it includes several satellites that vary in the characteristics and objectives.

one of these satellites is sentinel 5p, which is dedicated to studies related to the atmosphere.

through its spectrum (tropomi), it can extract much information related to the spatial and temporal distribution of ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and others.

in this study, sentinel5p data were used to clarify the temporal and spatial differences in the NO2 concentration over the Arabian peninsula before and after the Covid-19 pandemic by comparing the gas concentration in the period from January to July for 2020 and 2019, where it is noticed that the policies taken to confront this epidemic in the world countries as the curfew have reduced the industrial activity and traffic, which reduced the NO2 concentrations in the troposphere.

this led to inspect the situation in the Arabian peninsula, especially after the imposition of such policies in the region.

additionally, monthly averages of NO2 concentration were extracted using ground stations located in the state of Kuwait, by comparing the concentration in 2020 to 2019 and 2015.

moreover, a spatial interpolation model for no2 monthly concentration was built for Kuwait city in 2020 and compared to2019.

the results showed that the NO2 concentration rises over the western coastal cities of the Arabian gulf and central cities, as it began to decrease from January to May.

also, the NO2 concentration decreased significantly in 2020 for both the Arabian peninsula and Kuwait after the policies adopted to confront virus Covid-19.