European primary emissions of criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases in 2020 modulated by the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions

Abstract. We present a European dataset of daily-, sector-, pollutant- and country-dependent emission adjustment factors associated to the COVID-19 mobility restrictions for the year 2020. The resulting dataset covers a total of nine emission sectors, including road transport, energy industry, manufacturing industry, residential and commercial combustion, aviation, shipping, off-road transport, use of solvents, and fugitive emissions from transportation and distribution of fossil fuels. The dataset was produced to be combined with the Copernicus CAMS-REG_v5.1 2020 business-as-usual (BAU) inventory, which provides high resolution (0.1 × 0.05 deg.) emission estimates for 2020 omitting the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions. The combination of both datasets allows quantifying spatially- and temporally-resolved reductions in primary emissions from both criteria pollutants (NO_x, SO₂, NMVOC, NH₃, CO, PM₁₀ and PM_2.5) and greenhouse gases (CO₂ fossil fuel, CO₂ biofuel and CH₄), as well as assessing the contribution of each emission sector and European country to the overall emission changes. Estimated overall emission changes in 2020 relative to BAU emissions were as follows: −10.5 % for NO_x (−602 kt), −7.8 % (−260.2 Mt) for CO₂ from fossil fuels, −4.7 % (−808.5 kt) for CO, −4.6 % (−80 kt) for SO₂, −3.3 % (−19.1 Mt) for CO₂ from biofuels, −3.0 % (−56.3 kt) for PM₁₀, −2.5 % (−173.3 kt) for NMVOC, −2.1 % (−24.3 kt) for PM_2.5, −0.9 % (−156.1 kt) for CH₄ and −0.2 % (−8.6 kt) for NH₃. The most pronounced drop in emissions occurred in April (up to −32.8 % on average for NO_x) when mobility restrictions were at their maxima. The emission reductions during the second epidemic wave between October and December, were three to four times lower than those occurred during the Spring lockdown, as mobility restrictions were generally softer (e.g., curfews, limited social gatherings). Italy, France, Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany were, together, the largest contributors to the total EU27 + UK absolute emission decreases. At the sectoral level, the largest emission declines were found for aviation (−51 to −56 %), followed by road transport (−15.5 % to −18.8 %), the latter being the main driver of the estimated reductions for the majority of pollutants. The collection of COVID-19 emission adjustment factors (https://doi.org/10.24380/k966-3957, Guevara et al., 2022) and the CAMS-REG_v5.1 2020 BAU gridded inventory (https://doi.org/10.24380/eptm-kn40, Kuenen et al., 2022) have been produced in support of air quality modelling studies.