Abstract
Abstract. Air pollution is a serious environmental and health issue in Malaysia due to the recent urbanization processes. The main sources of air pollutants are motorized vehicles in urban areas and airports and industrial activities. At the airports, NO2 is the main pollutant of concern besides aerosols particles, yet gap in data availability prevent studies to describe their patterns and quantify their effects on human health and climate change. In this study NO2 data from TROPOMI sensor on board Sentinel 5-P satellite was used to characterize the spatial and temporal patterns of NO2 tropospheric column amounts at major airports in Malaysia. The results demonstrate that NO2 amounts from aircrafts and ground traffic activities are generally higher and/or similar to the amounts found in urban areas. Total tropospheric column amounts of NO2 during the movement restriction imposed due to Covid-19 pandemic between March and April 2020 was approximately 50% lower the total emission during the same period in 2019 (representing a business as usual period). Assessing the spatial pattern and temporal variations in NO2 (both surface and total vertical profile) is important for monitoring the impact of air pollutants on climate change and human health in Malaysia.
Highlights
Air pollution is a serious environmental issue in Malaysia in recent years as Malaysia is developing into an urbanized and industrialized nation (Latif et al, 2018)
The major air pollutants at airports and their vicinities is aerosol particles and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) that are formed by nitrogen oxides emitted by aircrafts and other automobiles operating at airports (Fanning et al, 2007; Dumka et al, 2019)
We further analysed the variation in NO2 values at the airport (10 km radius) and nearby locations surrounded by sub-urban areas (Figure 3)
Summary
Air pollution is a serious environmental issue in Malaysia in recent years as Malaysia is developing into an urbanized and industrialized nation (Latif et al, 2018). The recently available (launched in October 2017) TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument) sensor on board the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 5 P satellite provides NO2 data at high spatial resolution, high temporal revisits and better accuracy (Griffin et al, 2019) compared to earlier satellites (Table 1). This data provides an opportunity to characterize air pollution in a better way at local scales (airports, cities and industrial areas). Reference Burrows et al (1999) Bovensmann et al (1999) Callies et al (2000) Krotkov et al (2016) Ialongo et al (2020)
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