VIRTUAL MEETING| Air Pollution in the UK during COVID-19 Lockdown
LOCATION
TITLE| Air pollution in the UK during the COVID-19 lockdown: changes and the implication for future air quality strategy.
SPEAKER| Speaker: Prof. James Lee, National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the University of York
The current COVID-19 outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. Efforts to prevent the virus spreading have included severe travel restrictions and the closure of workplaces, inevitably leading to a significant drop in emissions of air pollutants. This provides a unique opportunity to examine how air pollutant concentrations respond to an abrupt and prolonged perturbation, followed by policy-relatable increases as restrictions are incrementally relaxed. This talk focussed on the effect of the outbreak on air pollution levels (e.g. NOx, PM2.5, VOCs and O3) in the UK and Europe, based on data from a range of in-situ monitoring networks. It examined how air pollution in the UK might respond to future changes in transport emissions, for example as the vehicle fleet becomes more electrified.
Speaker biography | Prof. James Lee, National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the University of York
I am an atmospheric chemist working for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of York. I did my undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Leeds, researching free radical chemistry in the atmosphere. Following a short post-doc on this at Leeds I moved to NCAS at the University of York as a research fellow specialising in oxidation chemistry in the atmosphere and measurements of air pollutants. Recently I have led the development of techniques to directly measure the emissions of air pollutants in order to validate national and international emission estimates. I am responsible for coordinating large scale ground and aircraft based field campaigns in the UK and around the world and have led projects in Borneo, Beijing, Delhi, Uganda and London (to name just a few). My most recent work has been on the effect of the COVID19 lockdowns on air pollution in the UK.
This was a 30min talk followed by a 10min Q&A. Meeting was open 6.50pm onwards for attendees to join. Event started promptly at 7pm.
For anyone who was not able to join us, or who may want to watch back the recording, you can now view the presentation on our YouTube channel below.
TITLE| Air pollution in the UK during the COVID-19 lockdown: changes and the implication for future air quality strategy.
SPEAKER| Speaker: Prof. James Lee, National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the University of York
The current COVID-19 outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. Efforts to prevent the virus spreading have included severe travel restrictions and the closure of workplaces, inevitably leading to a significant drop in emissions of air pollutants. This provides a unique opportunity to examine how air pollutant concentrations respond to an abrupt and prolonged perturbation, followed by policy-relatable increases as restrictions are incrementally relaxed. This talk focussed on the effect of the outbreak on air pollution levels (e.g. NOx, PM2.5, VOCs and O3) in the UK and Europe, based on data from a range of in-situ monitoring networks. It examined how air pollution in the UK might respond to future changes in transport emissions, for example as the vehicle fleet becomes more electrified.
Speaker biography | Prof. James Lee, National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the University of York
I am an atmospheric chemist working for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of York. I did my undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Leeds, researching free radical chemistry in the atmosphere. Following a short post-doc on this at Leeds I moved to NCAS at the University of York as a research fellow specialising in oxidation chemistry in the atmosphere and measurements of air pollutants. Recently I have led the development of techniques to directly measure the emissions of air pollutants in order to validate national and international emission estimates. I am responsible for coordinating large scale ground and aircraft based field campaigns in the UK and around the world and have led projects in Borneo, Beijing, Delhi, Uganda and London (to name just a few). My most recent work has been on the effect of the COVID19 lockdowns on air pollution in the UK.
This was a 30min talk followed by a 10min Q&A. Meeting was open 6.50pm onwards for attendees to join. Event started promptly at 7pm.
For anyone who was not able to join us, or who may want to watch back the recording, you can now view the presentation on our YouTube channel below.