A new study on carbon emission stated that the outbreak of the new coronavirus (Covid-19) has led to a significant reduction in fossil-fuel-derived CO2 (FFCO2) emissions and other anthropogenic air pollutants in the world.

Researchers of the study believe that this situation gave the world citizens a unique opportunity to assess the ability to quantify the changes in the regional FFCO2 emissions using atmospheric observations. However, there are a few observational reports that also claimed that the reduction of CO2 emission is short-lived.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers from the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) carried out the research.

They examined atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations observed at Hateruma Island, Japan, which is located in the continental margin of East Asia. They also detected signals related to the FFCO2 reduction in China caused by the rCovid-19 induced restrictions in January-March 2020.

Prabir K Patra, co-author of the study and researcher at JAMSTEC said: "The size of the atmospheric reservoir of CO2 is quite large and the atmospheric CO2 has a relatively long lifetime. These characteristics make the change in the atmospheric CO2 concentrations caused by the Covid-19 influence quite small."

To detect such CO2 variations, the research team of NIES and JAMSTEC focused on the relative variation of the atmospheric CO2 and CH4 observed at Hateruma Island for the past 20 years at daily time intervals.

The research team found that the monthly average ratio of the atmospheric CO2 to CH4 variations in January, February, and March tracked the yearly increase in FFCO2 emissions from China during 1997-2019. However, the ratios showed significant decreases in February (30 per cent) and March (20 per cent) 2020, which coincided with the lockdown period in China.