China's spring sprung earlier in 2020 thanks to COVID-19

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-08-27 10:00

Australia; International; TAS

Image by Ronny Overhate from Pixabay

Spring sprung earlier in China in 2020 due to reduced human activity as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, according to Aussie and international research. The team found that travel in Japan decreased by 58 per cent in the first 18 days of restrictions, and the atmosphere became much clearer, with less radiation falling on vegetation. As a result, they say, spring arrived eight days earlier, and the vegetation was almost 18 per cent greener than the previous five years. This brighter, earlier, greener spring in 2020 shows that short-term changes in human activity can have rapid ecological impacts, they say.

Media release

From:

Journal/
conference: Science Advances

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Tasmania

Funder: This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDA19060304), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41421001), and the President’s International Fellowship Initiative of Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no.2020VEA0009).

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.