Aerosol composition of urban plumes passing over a rural monitoring site

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1980 · Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6854528

Ellestad, T G

A field study conducted at a ground site 100 km north of St. Louis, Mo., to measure the aerosol composition and gaseous concentrations of urban plumes passing the site is discussed. Coarse and fine aerosol elemental concentrations, height scattering, meteorological data and concentrations of SO/sub 2/, CO, O/sub 3/, and NO-NO/sub x/ were measured and then analyzed together with data from associate investigators on fluorocarbon-11, total hydrocarbons, and size distributions. The results show that: (1) gaseous and elemental aerosol concentrations at the ground site 100 km from the St. Louis urban area were clearly influenced by the St. Louis urban plume, (2) the urban plumes of Chicago and Indianapolis, 350 km from the ground site, may have been detected, (3) sulfur compounds, presumably sulfates, accounted for 30-40% of the mass loading within the St. Louis urban plume, and resided almost entirely within the size range below 2.5 microns, (4) the most reliable urban-plume tracers in this study were fine Pb, fluorocarbon-11, total nonmethane hydrocarbons, and CO, and (5) over a period of several days, there may have been a regional buildup of fine S, light scattering, aerosol mass, O/sub 3/, and NO/sub x/ and, to a lesser extent, CO and fluorocarbon-11.

• Research Organization: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Sciences Research Laboratory, Research Triangle Park, NC
• OSTI ID: 6854528
• Report Number(s): CONF-790115-
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci.; (United States)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AEROSOL MONITORING
AEROSOLS
ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON MONOXIDE
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
CHEMISTRY
COLLOIDS
DISPERSIONS
ELEMENTS
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
HYDROCARBONS
LEAD
MASS TRANSFER
METALS
MONITORING
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NITROGEN OXIDES
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
OZONE
PLUMES
RURAL AREAS
SOLS
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR DIOXIDE
SULFUR OXIDES
URBAN AREAS