Airborne air pollution monitoring experiment in an area of mountain-valley terrain

Conference · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1976

OSTI ID:7353138

Kao, S K; Taylor, G H

An airborne monitoring program was conducted to determine the behavior of the plume emitted by a large copper smelter in northern Utah. Using a conductivity-type analyzer, sulfur dioxide concentrations were measured at various locations downwind of the source. A series of cross wind passes were flown, at incremental altitudes, to determine the concentration distribution of sulfur dioxide. Measured concentrations in the mountain-valley terrains were, in general, much lower than those predicted by the flat-surface diffusion model. It was felt that, since the smelter lies in an area of high relief, models intended for use over a flat surface would not be applicable for predicting plume concentrations in mountain-valley terrain; mechanical turbulence induced by mountain terrain near the source was thought to be the major cause of discrepancies between flat surface predictions and measured centerline concentrations. An analytic equation based on wind tunnel experiments was developed for use during southerly to easterly flow to predict lateral dispersion parameters within the plume. The approximations derived from this equation were a significant improvement over flat-terrain model predictions. The experiments suggest that the Gaussian diffusion model may be used for predicting pollution concentration in mountain-valley terrains with a modification of the dispersion parameters.

• Research Organization: Utah Univ., Salt Lake City (USA)
• OSTI ID: 7353138
• Report Number(s): COO-2455-7; CONF-761003-4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION
CHALCOGENIDES
COPPER
DIFFUSION
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ELEMENTS
EQUATIONS
FORECASTING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
METALS
MONITORING
NORTH AMERICA
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PLUMES
POLLUTION
ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION
SMELTING
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR DIOXIDE
SULFUR OXIDES
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
TURBULENCE
USA
UTAH
VALLEYS