Sentinel-5P Evidence for Low-Carbon Energy Planning and Arctic Air-Quality Resilience in Yukon and Alaska

Abstract

Remote Arctic and sub-Arctic communities face intersecting pressures from rapid climate change, high energy costs, combustion-based heating, and sparse environmental monitoring. In Yukon and Alaska, these conditions make air quality not only a public-health concern but also an important consideration for low-carbon energy planning and climate resilience. This study develops a six-year (2019–2024), paired-jurisdiction framework using Sentinel-5P TROPOMI carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) observations to provide screening-level evidence for Arctic air-quality management and cleaner energy transitions. Satellite data were quality-screened and processed in Google Earth Engine and Python and then analyzed through annual, seasonal, and monthly aggregation, hotspot mapping, and Mann–Kendall and Seasonal Mann–Kendall trend tests. Results reveal a persistent jurisdictional split. CO remained consistently higher in Alaska than in Yukon (0 .0296–0.0340 vs 0 .0271–0.0310 mol m⁻²), while NO₂ was substantially higher in Yukon than in Alaska (4.65 × 10⁻⁵–5.18 ×10⁻⁵ vs 3.81 × 10⁻⁶–5.05 ×10⁻⁶ mol m⁻²). Seasonal contrasts were stable, with Alaska exceeding Yukon for CO in all seasons and Yukon exceeding Alaska for NO₂ by roughly an order of magnitude. Monthly Seasonal Mann–Kendall analysis detected modest but significant CO declines in both jurisdictions, at about 1.5% per year, whereas NO₂ showed no significant trend. Recurrent hotspots were concentrated in interior Alaska and northern Yukon for CO and along the Anchorage–Kenai corridor and northern Yukon for NO₂. These findings suggest that Sentinel-5P can support low-carbon energy planning, smoke-season preparedness, inversion-time response, and equity-centered Arctic resilience in sparsely monitored northern regions.

Received: 17 March 2025 | Revised: 13 July 2026 | Accepted: 18 July 2026

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Author Contribution Statement

Matthew McCarthy: Investigation, Visualization, Writing – original draft. Davoud Ghahremanlou: Conceptualization, Investigation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Amir Ghahremanlou: Investigation, Methodology, Conceptualization, Data curation, Software, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing –original draft.