Study of air pollution plumes with imaging techniques
This work examines the possibilities of atmospheric dispersion studies through the use of small scale images of air pollution plumes, particularly through the use of Landsat imagery. The major points are: 1) A historical description of the uses of imaging techniques in atmospheric and plume dispersion studies. 2) A review of dispersion theories used with smoke and air pollution photography. 3) A study of a plume (up to 200 km) spreading over the ocean and visible in Landsat images is developed. Sixteen cases of this plume indicated that its shape and length depend mainly on the wind speed. Long plumes were characteristic of winds stronger than 5 m/s and spread within an angle of 5/sup 0/ to 7.5/sup 0/. An association with Reynolds' (1983) experiments is made in spite of a difference of six orders of magnitude between the length of the plumes in these two works. Pasquill's (1961) horizontal dispersion coefficients were within an expected variation when compared to the values measured from the images. Nevertheless, this variation is associated with limitations in the dispersion equation and in the dispersion coefficients. 4) A study of Landsat multi-spectral data showed that plumes over water have their own spectral signature and that they can be located with an unsupervised classification technique (Cluster). 5) The remote sensing of plumes is suggested as a viable tool for environmental problems such as acid rain and long-range transport of air pollutants. The use of existing (as well as future) satellite images is a virtually unexplored source of data for environmental studies.
- Research Organization:
- Purdue Univ., Lafayette, IN (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6750594
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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