A global observational analysis to understand changes in air quality during exceptionally low anthropogenic emission conditions.

This global study, which has been coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization Global Atmospheric Watch (WMO/GAW) programme, aims to understand the behaviour of key air pollutant species during the COVID-19 pandemic period of exceptionally low emissions across the globe. We investigated the effects of the differences in both emissions and regional and local meteorology in 2020 compared with the period 2015-2019. By adopting a globally consistent approach, this comprehensive observational analysis focuses on changes in air quality in and around cities across the globe for the following air pollutants PM, PM, PMC (coarse fraction of PM), NO, SO, NOx, CO, O and the total gaseous oxidant (OX = NO + O) during the pre-lockdown, partial lockdown, full lockdown and two relaxation periods spanning from January to September 2020.

Isolating the impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures on urban air quality in Canada.

Unlabelled: We have investigated the impact of reduced emissions due to COVID-19 lockdown measures in spring 2020 on air quality in Canada's four largest cities: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary. Observed daily concentrations of NO, PM, and O during a "pre-lockdown" period (15 February-14 March 2020) and a "lockdown" period (22 March-2 May 2020), when lockdown measures were in full force everywhere in Canada, were compared to the same periods in the previous decade (2010-2019). Higher-than-usual seasonal declines in mean daily NO were observed for the pre-lockdown to lockdown periods in 2020.

Health impact analysis of PM from wildfire smoke in Canada (2013-2015, 2017-2018).

Smoke from wildfires contains many air pollutants of concern and epidemiological studies have identified associations between exposure to wildfire smoke PM and mortality and respiratory morbidity, and a possible association with cardiovascular morbidity. For this study, a retrospective analysis of air quality modelling was performed to quantify the exposure to wildfire-PM across the Canadian population. The model included wildfire emissions from across North America for a 5-month period from May to September (i.

The FireWork air quality forecast system with near-real-time biomass burning emissions: Recent developments and evaluation of performance for the 2015 North American wildfire season.

Unlabelled: Environment and Climate Change Canada's FireWork air quality (AQ) forecast system for North America with near-real-time biomass burning emissions has been running experimentally during the Canadian wildfire season since 2013. The system runs twice per day with model initializations at 00 UTC and 12 UTC, and produces numerical AQ forecast guidance with 48-hr lead time. In this work we describe the FireWork system, which incorporates near-real-time biomass burning emissions based on the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS) as an input to the operational Regional Air Quality Deterministic Prediction System (RAQDPS).