{"id":34027,"date":"2020-03-25T14:07:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T14:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packetstormsecurity.com\/news\/view\/31059\/Coronavirus-Has-Slashed-Air-Pollution.-This-Interactive-Map-Shows-How..html"},"modified":"2020-03-25T14:07:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T14:07:37","slug":"coronavirus-has-slashed-air-pollution-this-interactive-map-shows-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/coronavirus-has-slashed-air-pollution-this-interactive-map-shows-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus Has Slashed Air Pollution. This Interactive Map Shows How."},"content":{"rendered":"

The covid-19 pandemic<\/a><\/span> has changed the world, grinding to a halt increasingly large geographic areas and portions of the economy in an effort to slow the virus\u2019 spread.<\/p>\n

The impacts have been profound on the ground, but government-mandated lockdowns have also remade the atmosphere. Satellite data from China<\/a><\/span>, the first epicenter of the outbreak, and Italy<\/a><\/span>, the second hot spot, have shown big drops in pollution following lockdowns that limited the movement of people and goods and factories\u2019 ability to produce stuff. With the pandemic now becoming increasingly prevalent in the U.S., Americans have already started moving less as mayors and governors have turned to similar measures.<\/p>\n

In an effort to track the impacts, Earther assembled an interactive map<\/a><\/span> to explore the changes in air pollution not just in the U.S. but globally. The map runs on Google Earth Engine and uses data collected by the European Space Agency\u2019s Sentinel-5P satellite, which circles the Earth capturing various types of data. It includes four snapshots from December 2019 through March 20, 2020. The Sentinel satellite data shows nitrogen dioxide, which is a handy proxy for human activity.<\/p>\n