Air pollution trends measured from MODIS and TROPOMI: AOD and CO over Pakistan

The TROPOMI (TROPOspheric monitoring instrument) onboard Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) satellite provides high spatial resolution data of carbon monoxide (CO) while the MAIAC (Multiangle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction) is a newly developed algorithm applied to MODIS collection 6 observations to retrieve AOD (Aerosol Optical Depth) at a high spatial resolution of 1 km. The present study utilized the MAIAC AOD from MODIS Terra and Aqua polar-orbiting satellites between March 2000 to December 2021 and CO from Sentinel-5P during the available period July 2018-December 2021 over Pakistan. Moreover, we used three trend techniques (Linear regression, Mann–Kendall (MK), and Theil-Sen’s Slope) to examine the trends of AOD and CO over Pakistan. The results show that both AOD and CO have high values over central Punjab, western Balochistan, central Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The mean annual high AOD of > 1.2 is observed in eastern Punjab because of an increase in urbanization, industrialization, and economical activities whereas the AOD of ~ 1.0 is observed over Balochistan, Sindh, and a few parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The highest mean annual CO of ˃0.03 mol/m^2 is seen over central Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The results show that seasonal mean MAIAC AOD ranging from 0.7 to > 0.9 was seen over Punjab and Sindh province during the monsoon season whereas the lowest AOD is detected in the winter season over few parts of Balochistan. In contrast, the highest mean seasonal CO ranging from 0.040 to > 0.055 mol/m^2 was seen in the winter season over Punjab. The lowest CO concentration is observed in the winter season over the northern region of Pakistan. Non-parametric analyses (MK and Theil-Sen’s slope) also show an increasing trend of CO over Pakistan from 2018 to 2021. Furthermore, we have also investigated the trends of AOD and CO over selected cities of Pakistan using linear regression, MK test, and Theil-Sen’s slope to reveal long-term air pollution trends.