Effects of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments on distributions of visual impairment
- Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, Washington, DC (United States)
The Acid Rain Provisions (Title IV) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (1990 CAAA) focus on emission policies designed to reduce the amount of deposition of acidifying pollutants, particularly in the Northeast. The primary strategy is a significant reduction in SO{sub 2} emissions, with lesser reductions scheduled for NO{sub {times}} emissions. However, lessening of acid deposition is not the only important benefit of the emission control strategy. Decreasing SO{sup {minus}} and NO {sup {minus}} emissions will decrease atmospheric concentrations of sulfate and nitrate particles, which account for much of the visibility reduction associated with regional haze. Although one can get a qualitative sense of how visibility might improve by examining historical large-scale trends in regional emission totals and regional visibility, quantification of the expected improvement requires model simulations. One must model the spatial and temporal patterns of emissions reductions; the relevant pollutant transport, transformation, and removal processes in the atmosphere; and the changes in particulate loading. For this initial examination of the visibility improvement at Shenandoah National Park associated the the Phase I and Phase II SO{sub 2} emission reductions, we have linked emission trend projections taken from ongoing analysis of the 1990 CAAA at Argonne National Laboratory, regional transport modeling with the Advanced Statistical Trajectory Regional Air Pollution (ASTRAP) model and visual impairment modeling with the Visibility Assessment Scoping Model (VASM).
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 207631
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/ER/CP-87645; CONF-960127-8; ON: DE96005243
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 9. joint American Meteorological Society/Air and Waste Management Association conference on applications of air pollution meteorology, Atlanta, GA (United States), 28 Jan - 2 Feb 1996; Other Information: PBD: [1996]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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