Variability of satellite-based tropospheric nitrogen dioxide column abundance in the last 20 years over ten Mexican metropolitan areas measured by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument
Abstract Urbanization has been growing in the world, and it is expected that more human beings will be living in cities over the next years. In Mexico, rising urbanization during the last decades has involved an increase in urban population density as a result of expanding economic activities in urb...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Discover Atmosphere |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s44292-025-00039-5 |
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| Summary: | Abstract Urbanization has been growing in the world, and it is expected that more human beings will be living in cities over the next years. In Mexico, rising urbanization during the last decades has involved an increase in urban population density as a result of expanding economic activities in urban centers. There are several reasons for people to decide to move from rural areas to live in cities, such as seeking better job opportunities, services and education. Along with people deciding to move from rural to urban areas, there come some consequences, such as creating social, economic and environmental pressures on the regions where people decide to settle. Urbanization can create great social, economic and environmental pressures and changes which can easily be observed in most urban agglomerations of the world. In this research, an analysis of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) column trends over ten Mexican urban areas was made using Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy measurements of NO2 conducted by the space-borne Ozone Monitoring Instrument on board the Aura satellite between October 2004 and September 2024. The analyzed dataset provided the opportunity to obtain a satellite-based 20-year tropospheric NO2 column trend over the most populated Mexican cities which include the metropolitan area of Mexico City (a megacity) with more than 21 million inhabitants as well as nine other Mexican metropolitan areas with a population ranging between 1.3 and 5.3 million inhabitants and with a wide range of activities (commercial, agricultural or heavily industrialized) as well as one important border crossing between Mexico and the United States of America. Our results indicate that during the studied period, there has been a significant NO2 decrease over most of the targeted cities, however, only the Mexico City Metropolitan Area has a statistically significant decreasing trend, of − 0.627% per year (r2 = 0.847, p < 0.0001), over the past 20 years. |
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| ISSN: | 2948-1554 |