Worldwide – European Space Agency (ESA), NASA and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) have joined together to pool their resources together to build a new dashboard as they monitor and track how the environment and economics was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

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“The pandemic was not only leaving a staggering toll of human suffering. It was having a global impact that we could document from space, Our three space agencies realized that if we could combine forces, we could bring a more powerful set of analytical tools to bear on this fast-moving crisis.”said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate,.

The COVID-19 Earth Observation Dashboard lets users explore how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected airports and shipping traffic, agricultural production in locations across the world. It also includes data on greenhouse gases, air quality, and water quality.

The joint dashboards document every phase of the Earth as they circle around the globe, checking for the carbon footprint of each country while reporting on the visible traffic, carbon emission, greenhouse gases and nitrogen dioxide pollution among other factors.

China has been seen to be slowly going back to their carbon dioxide and  nitrogen oxide pollution emission. There had been a significant drop in greenhouse gases but it is said to be temporary.  

The skies being clearer showcases human foot traffic greatly reduces with factories shut down and planes parked at the airport. Nitrogen dioxide is a by-product of fossil fuels burning  that can be seen by the dashboard as continents like the US, India and China are being heavily monitored as the biggest contributors to the NO2 emissions.

 “Our teams are exhausted now, but also very proud to have our work presented to a global audience today,” Director of ESA Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher, said.

The good will of the joint project is to help finally unite the world against a virus so destructive it has affected the lives of so many around the world with perpetual fear and has put the world in an insecure and vulnerable state for the last 3-4 months in 2020.

The world is barely out of the COVID-19 pandemic sweep and as many continuously second doubt themselves on the severity of the virus, the dashboard numbers do not lie in that the world has definitely put it self in quarantine in every country.