Spatio-Temporal Variation of Tropospheric Nitrogen Dioxide Over Southwest, Nigeria

Emissions of Nitrogen dioxide from biomass burning, soil microbial processes, anthropogenic and gas flaring activities over Southwest Nigeria play a major role in local and regional air quality. The study investigates the spatiotemporal trend of NO2 using Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) data between 2010 and 2020. An average of 3.97×1015 mol/cm2 with an increase of 7.63% over the years was discovered in the course of the study. The increase in the pollutant over this region is linked to Industrial processes, biomass burning and anthropogenic activities like vehicular emission, increase in industrial and agricultural activities, etc. The Spatio-temporal trend analysis showed significant decline in areas where biomass burning was the main driver of NO2 variability and a significant increase in areas where urban emission was the main driver. The observed seasonality of NO2 is associated with change in meteorological conditions and seasonal cycles anthropogenic emissions. The analysis revealed a monthly peak in January followed by September largely linked to meteorological conditions, Industrial processes and anthropogenic emissions from crop residue and biomass and low concentration is mostly attributed to meteorological conditions.