In an effort to track the impacts, Earther assembled an interactive map 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’s 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. — Gizmodo

Brian Kahn and Dhruv Mehrotra of Earther highlight a recently launched pollution visualizer their team has assembled that highlights the stark changes in human activity across the world in the wake of COVID-19-imposed economic and social disruptions.

The authors interview Barbara Dix, an atmospheric researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder who explains, “We are now witnessing a global experiment where one emission source is rapidly turned down (NOx), while other sources are still up or will decrease more slowly. A lot of atmospheric science will come out of this.”

The interactive map, which uses satellite data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite and runs on the Google Earth Engine, can be accessed here.