Single-station integral measures of atmospheric stagnation, ventilation, and recirculation
In air pollution work, terms such as stagnation, ventilation, and recirculation have come to be used to indicate special types of flow conditions that produce important effects on the dispersion of air pollutants. Stagnations are events where atmospheric flows decrease in speed, or stop altogether, allowing pollutants to build up in stagnant air in the vicinity of the pollutant sources. Ventilations, on the other hand, are events in which a confined polluted air mass is driven away and replaced by fresh air. Finally, a recirculation is an event in which polluted air is initially carried away from the source region but later returns to produce a high pollution episode. The three terms, when used in air pollution work, are often used in a general sense, but rarely are defined mathematically to allow a numerical evaluation of the flow character. In the present work we develop mathematical definitions of these terms by focusing directly on the relevant atmospheric transport conditions, irrespective of pollution levels. The mathematical definitions of several single- station integral quantities representative of stagnation, ventilation, and recirculation are described, and the approach is applied to a wind data et from a radar profiler at Page, Arizona.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC06-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 7178239
- Report Number(s):
- PNL-SA-20899; CONF-9209163-2; ON: DE93001554
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 6. American Meteorological Society conference on mountain meteorology, Portland, OR (United States), 29 Sep - 2 Oct 1992
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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