Madrid, along with the rest of Spain, has been in coronavirus lockdown at home for over a month. Freedom of movement for residents no longer exists and with this fact, has come an astonishing decrease in road traffic during quarantine, banishing the famous greyish fog that clouds the sky over Madrid under normal circumstances.
During these days of confinement, the people of Madrid have started to see clear views of the mountains from their windows. In recent times this has been something unheard of, given that the high levels of air pollution, causing a cap of polluted air that settles over Madrid famously nicknamed la boina (the beret), generally make it impossible to see the mountains that are cut off behind the city's skyscrapers.
However, as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. This certainly seems to be the case according to the figures from a study carried out by the meteorological department of eltiempo.es, stating that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels in Madrid fell by 60% in the second half of March, coinciding with the beginning of confinement due to the coronavirus crisis. This is a record that represents a historical low in the last 19 years.
This is the lowest rate recorded since 2001, explained Mar Gómez, head of the meteorological department at eltiempo.es, who pointed out that this situation is indeed largely due to "the reduction in traffic and industrial activity due to the confinement".
Given that the state of alarm was declared on 14th March 2020, eltiempo.es has analysed data collected from 12 stations in the Madrid City Council area in the period from 15th to 31st March. These stations have a complete record from 2001 to the present. Among the 12 locations spread throughout Madrid, 6 of them, due to their location near central arteries of the capital, show the changes in air quality more clearly. All the measurement stations, except one, located in Casa de Campo, record their minimum level of polluting particles during confinement. The exception of Casa de Campo is said to be because it is traditionally the least impacted by road traffic.
And Madrid is not the only city seemingly breathing in cleaner, less polluted air: a new set of satellite images and data from the European Environment Agency reveals that air pollution has dramatically decreased across Europe following the coronavirus lockdown measures, especially in the areas around large cities in the rest of Spain, Italy and France. Making these changes permanent, however, represents a much greater challenge and perhaps more than anything, indicates the scale of the challenge ahead.