Investigating The Effect of Covid Induced Lockdown On Land Surface Temperature Over Ahmedabad City

The present study focuses over Ahmedabad City of Gujarat State, India for the time period 1
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March to 30
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June comprising of the Pre-Lockdown Phase (PLP), the National Lockdown Phase – 1 (NLP1) and the Unlock Phase – 1 (ULP1). We have considered this time period over the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 to explore the effect of COVID induced lockdown on LST and understanding its variation. Satellite data acquired from AQUA – MODIS with a spatial and temporal resolution of 1 Km and 1-2 days respectively was used for the analysis of the LST. The average LST over Ahmedabad was 314.18 K, 311.79 K and 315.67 K for PLP over the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. For NLP1 the average LST over those years were 321.68 K, 318.73 K and 319.39 K respectively. And for the ULP1 the average LST over those years were 319.87 K, 314.07 K and 312.19 K respectively. We observe a 2.38 %, 2.22 % and 1.17 % increase in LST from the PLP to NLP1 during the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. The increase of LST during the NLP1 in 2020 showed that as the pollution decreased, the active elements that were present in the atmosphere which caused disturbance to the sensor on the satellite while calculating LST were reduced and we got a brighter top of surface. The decrease in LST from 2019 levels for the ULP1 is also observed indicating the effects of lockdown and onset of monsoon in 2020 and 2021.