Temporal Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Air Pollutants in Wuhan During COVID-19 Epidemic

During the COVID-19, human-made sources of air pollutants in Wuhan had been greatly reduced, which had an important impact on regional ambient air quality. This paper used pollutant data from the ground monitoring sites, combined with meteorological element data, to study the temporal change characteristics of air pollutants in Wuhan during the COVID-19, and analyzed the influencing factors of air pollutant concentration. The results showed that compared with the same period in 2019, the concentrations of five air pollutants ( \({NO}_{2}\) , \({SO}_{2}\) , \({PM}_{10}\) , \({PM}_{2.5}, CO\) ) in Wuhan decreased, and the concentration of \({O}_{3}\) increased compared with the same period in 2019. The pollutant concentration was high in urban and low in suburb. In terms of the influencing factors of pollutant concentration, favorable meteorological conditions that were conducive to maintaining a high level of pollutant concentration and forming atmospheric pollution events included calm or breeze, moderate relative humidity (70–90%), no or slight precipitation, high-pressure control, stable atmosphere stratification, and low boundary layer height.