Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the atmospheric boundary layer and instability process over Indian region

Ghouse Basha; M Venkat Ratnam; Yesubabu Viswanadhapalli; Rohit Chakraborty; Saginela Ravindra Babu; P Kishore

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154995

Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the atmospheric boundary layer and instability process over Indian region

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Aug 1:832:154995. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154995. Epub 2022 Apr 2.

Authors

Ghouse Basha¹, M Venkat Ratnam², Yesubabu Viswanadhapalli², Rohit Chakraborty³, Saginela Ravindra Babu⁴, P Kishore⁵

Affiliations

¹ National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Department of Space, Gadanki 517112, India. Electronic address: mdbasha@narl.gov.in.
² National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Department of Space, Gadanki 517112, India.
³ Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, India.
⁴ Department of Atmospheric Sciences, National Central University, Taoyuan City 32001, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.

Abstract

The abrupt reduction in the human activities during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented changes in the background atmospheric conditions. Several studies reported the anthropogenic and air quality changes observed during the lockdown. However, no attempts are made to investigate the lockdown effects on the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) and background instability processes. In this study, we assess the lockdown impacts on the ABL altitude and instability parameters (Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and Convective Inhibition Energy (CINE)) using WRF model simulations. Results showed a unique footprint of COVID-19 lockdown in all these parameters. Increase in the visibility, surface temperature and wind speed and decrease in relative humidity during the lockdown is noticed. However, these responses are not uniform throughout India and are significant in the inland compared to the coastal regions. The spatial variation of temperature (wind speed) and relative humidity shows an increase and decrease over the Indo Gangetic Plain (IGP) and central parts of India by 20% (100%) and 40%, respectively. Increase (80%) in the ABL altitude is larger over the IGP and central parts of India during lockdown of 2020 compared to similar time period in 2015-2019. This increase is attributed to the stronger insolation due to absence of anthropogenic activity and other background conditions. At the same time, CAPE decreased by 98% in the IGP and central parts of India, where it shows an increase in other parts of India. A prominent strengthening of CINE in the IGP and a weakening elsewhere is also noticed. These changes in CAPE and CINE are mainly attributed to the dearth of saturation in lower troposphere levels, which prevented the development of strong adiabatic ascent during the lockdown. These results provide a comprehensive observation and model-based insight for lockdown induced changes in the meteorological and thermo-dynamical parameters.

Keywords: ABL; CAPE; CINE; COVID-19 lockdown; Temperature; Visibility; Wind speed.

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
Air Pollution* / analysis
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Communicable Disease Control
Environmental Monitoring / methods
Humans
Pandemics
Particulate Matter / analysis

Substances

Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter