Estimating data, measuring impact

Corona is not over. The virus will continue to impinge on our lives until there is a vaccine available in sufficient quantity. In the meantime, Jülich scientists are researching how the restrictions of everyday life affect the environment, and they are improving predictions on the spread of the virus.

High season for climate research

Jülich climate researchers seized the opportunity: they launched extensive measurement campaigns to document the change in air quality during the lockdown in spring and also in the period afterwards. Equipped with Jülich instruments, two weather balloons rose to heights of up to 29 kilometres. A Zeppelin NT equipped with high-tech Jülich gear was used for the ground-level measurements between 200 and 1,000 metres above sea level, while the Jülich MobiLab measurement vehicle collected comparison samples on the ground. The campaigns recorded values for a large number of trace gases as well as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, CO₂, CFC_s, methane, water vapour, ozone and the particulate matter content of the different air layers.

Initial results show that the lockdown had no major impact on CO₂ levels in the upper troposphere and stratosphere at an altitude of around 15 kilometres. “We’ve been pumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air for over 200 years – one cannot expect it to be significantly less or even gone in a few weeks,” says Dr. Johannes Laube from the Institute of Energy and Climate Research plainly. Further measurements and the evaluation of all data are currently underway. The results are incorporated into several climate models to close knowledge gaps and to predict, for example, the effects of a radical change in transport on air quality in different regions.

per cent

more electricity: In March 2020, at the beginning of the corona crisis, photovoltaic systems in Delhi, India, achieved significantly higher yields than is usually the case at this time of year. Scientists from the Jülich branch of the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen- Nürnberg, together with partners from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the solar company Cleantech Solar, found that the decrease in man-made air pollution resulting from the corona lockdown allowed more sunlight to pierce through to the photovoltaic systems. The researchers had expected this, but were surprised at how considerable the effect was.