Aerosol deposition and suspension during a Texas dust storm

Technical Report · Mon Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1976

OSTI ID:7193203

Porch, W M; Lovill, J E

It is important to understand deposition and suspension of aerosol by wind as separate phenomena. This is especially true for the case of a contaminated area of land, contributing toxic aerosol. Once the toxic particulates have left the contaminated area, they can only deposit, even though new non-toxic particulates are being suspended all around them. A fortunate meteorological situation and a site with fast response aerosol and wind instrumentation, allowed us to analyze deposition and suspension, as separate phenomena on the same data record during a Texas dust storm. The major results of this analysis can be summarized as follows: The size distribution of the soil particulates and the geometrical orientation of plowed furrows to the wind are important to the threshold velocity, beyond which particles will be suspended from bare soil. Thresholds this year for clay soil were almost double that for the previous year for sand soil; the relationship between aerosol flux and wind speed above threshold was less well defined than the sandy soil data. The relationship does seem to involve a lower exponent than the sandy soil data, which showed a flux that varied as about the sixth power of the wind speed. (auth)

• Research Organization: California Univ., Livermore (USA). Lawrence Livermore Lab.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 7193203
• Report Number(s): UCRL-78011; CONF-760335-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AERODYNAMICS
AEROSOLS
AIR POLLUTION
COLLOIDS
DIFFUSION
DISASTERS
DISPERSIONS
DUSTS
ENVIRONMENT
FLUID MECHANICS
LAND POLLUTION
MECHANICS
METEOROLOGY
NORTH AMERICA
PARTICLES
POLLUTION
SOILS
SOLS
SOUTHWEST REGION
STORMS
TEXAS
TURBULENCE
USA
VELOCITY
WIND