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U.S. Department of Energy
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Building a pollutant reservoir aloft by cumulus clouds

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6706979
A diagnostic analysis is presented to assess the impact of nonprecipitating clouds on rates of change of pollutant concentration both in the mixed layer and in the free troposphere. This analysis is based on a coupled two-layer (mixed and free tropospheric) conservation of a pollutant-species model, which distinguishes the role of active or venting type clouds from the forced, or fair-weather cumulus clouds. The study examines the sensitivity of the modeled rates of change of pollutant predictions in the mixed layer and in the free troposphere to the method by which the vertical exchange of these venting-class clouds is modeled. This analysis focuses on the vertical redistribution process, the heterogeneous conversion process which are known to be rapid and important is ignored in the study by considering only total pollutant concentration.
Research Organization:
Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC (USA). Atmospheric Sciences Research Lab.
OSTI ID:
6706979
Report Number(s):
PB-87-145868/XAB; EPA-600/D-87/032
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English