ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT – ENGI 9609

Mujtaba Shareef
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Winter 2018

Atmospheric Transport
Meteorology
• Meteorology: study of the atmosphere, its motion, and its
phenomena.
• It is intimately connected with air quality, determining the
concentration levels of locally emitted primary pollutants, the
formation of secondary pollutants, their transport to other areas,
and their ultimate removal from the atmosphere.
• Topographic and meteorological conditions play important roles
Atmosphere
• Air pollution control engineers mostly deal with wind speed, direction
and atmospheric stability.
• Global atmosphere
• layer of gasses surrounding earth held by gravity
• Current atmosphere mostly N2, O2 and CO2.
Atmosphere
• Moisture content
• Relative humidity
• Perfectly well defined but quite uneven (water bodies, mountains,
valleys
• Upper boundary not well defined
• One half of the mass of atmosphere is within 3.4 miles of the surface,
99% is within 20 miles of the surface.
Atmosphere
• Thickness – 20 miles
• Diameter – 16,000 miles
• Most of the motions must be horizontal
• Vertical motion are one or two orders of
magnitude smaller than the horizontal
ones
• Typical storm is 200 miles horizontal and
10 miles top to bottom
Influence of the Ground and the Sea
• Mountains, oceans affects the
horizontal atmospheric flows
• Different behaviours to the solar
radiation by land and water

http://wordlesstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-himalayas-from-space2.jpg

http://images7.alphacoders.com/424/424529.jpg
Vertical Motion in the Atmosphere
• Vertical and horizontal motions in the atmosphere interact.
• Any parcel of air that is less dense than the air that surrounds it will
rise by buoyancy
• Any parcel more dense than the surrounding air will sink by negative
buoyance.
• Most vertical motions in the atmosphere are caused by changes in air
density
Standard atmosphere
• Standard Atmosphere –
meteorologists /aeronautical
engineers have defined that
represents approximate average of
all observation, day and night,
summer and winter over whole US.
• Lapse rate in standard atmosphere
is 6.49oC/km = 3.56oF/1000 ft, about
66% of adiabatic lapse rate.
• Adiabatic assumption not
appropriate for all circumstances
• Atmosphere is practically
transparent to visible light, but
absorbs and emits heat significantly,
mostly because of the water in the
atmosphere. (cool summer on clear
day than the moist day)
• Dry adiabatic lapse rate
Atmospheric Stability
• Temperature-elevation relationship is principal
determinant.
• Neutral, stable and unstable atmosphere
Behaviour of an air parcel
Neutral atmosphere
• If the surrounding air has adiabatic lapse rate then whether the parcel
moved up or down it will reach the same temperature of
surroundings
• Any displacement—surrounding air will be practically equal
• Gravity will not move up and down
• Air mass is neither stable nor unstable
• Simple displacements of air parcel do not lead to their return to their
original position, nor do they make the parcel continue to move
Stable atmosphere
• Surrounding air has sub-adiabatic lapse rate
• If it is displaced upward, it will continue to follow the adiabatic curve,
denser so gravity will drive it back down
• If is displaced downward, it will be warmer and less dense than
surrounding air, so gravity will drive it back up
Unstable atmosphere
• Surrounding air super-adiabatic
• If displaced upward, it will follow adiabatic curve so warmer and less
dense than surrounding air, gravity will drive it further up
• If displaced downward it will be colder and more dense than the
surrounding air so that gravity will drive it further downward
• Whatever is disturbed from its original location, gravity will continue
to move it in the direction of that displacement with an increasing
velocity
Analogy
Atmospheric Stability
• When and where we encounter stable, unstable and
neutral atmosphere?
• Any where, any time
• Radiation inversion
Soaring birds
• Soaring birds
• Stay aloft for long periods
without moving their
wings, riding on vertical
updrafts caused by ground
heating
• Cannot soar at dawn or
strong overcast days
• Human gliders too look for
updrafts
Dust devil
Dust devil/ tornados
Mixing Height
Velocities
• High ground level wind velocities
(tornadoes) up to 200 mi/h.
• Average ground-level velocity in most
of North America is about 10 mi/h
• 2 mi/h, you cannot feel it, generally
called “calm conditions”
• Friction slows the wind, typically wind
will reach its frictionless velocity
(geostrophic or gradient) at about 500
m.
• Planetary boundary layer
• Unstable atmospheres have generally
higher ground-level wind velocities
than stable ones
• High during early afternoon than in the
morning or the late afternoon or night
(sail boat races)
Velocities
• Strong winds provide good mixing, both horizontal
and vertical, which makes the temperature gradient
approach the dry adiabatic gradient
• Wind speeds greater than about 6 m/s or 13 mi/h the
observed stability is almost always neutral
• No strong rising air columns are formed due to strong
winds
Wind Direction
• Which direction wind is coming?
• Major, rapidly moving storms and fronts overwhelm local influences;
local ground level winds blow the way that the major storms dictate
• In deep valleys the daily alternation – wind up an the valley in the
daytime and down at night time
• Onshore and offshore breezes dominate when there is no major
storm
• Apart from these topography, wind direction is more likely to be as
shown in the globe diagram
Winds for some cities
Directions
Calm conditions
• < 2 mi/h
• Very poor dispersion
• Wind has no definite direction
Inversions
• Drainage inversion – cold air
down valleys often leads to
inversions at the bottom of
the valley with cold air
flowing in under warm air
• This type of inversion can fill
large valleys like the Central
Valley of California with a
cold fog for several days at a
time in winter
• All inversion inhibit
atmospheric mixing and thus
lead to the accumulation of
pollutants
Stability Conditions
• Pasquill introduced a
tabular method for
estimating atmospheric
stability
• Classified into six stability
classes
• A – Strongly unstable
• B – Moderately unstable
• C – Slightly unstable
• D – Neutral
• E – Slightly stable
• F – Moderately stable
Wind velocity profile
• Planetary boundary layer
• More stable atmospheric
conditions at night
• Profile usually steeper at
night than day
• Levels out at 600 m
Wind velocity profile
• Knowledge of wind speed
at some height is
necessary
• Numerous efforts have
been made to develop
suitable analytical
expressions
• Complexity of the
phenomenon, no
satisfactory expression
Turbulence
• Dispersion of atmospheric
pollutants is accomplished in
general by Wind and Atmospheric
turbulence
• Atmospheric turbulence not
completely understood
• It includes fluctuations in wind
flow with a frequency of more
than 2 cycles/hr
• Result of two specific effects
• Thermal turbulence: Atmospheric
heating, which causes natural
convection currents (d𝜌/𝑑𝑧)
• Mechanical Turbulence: Which
results from wind shear effect
(du/dz)
• Frequency is in the order of
minutes http://people.ucalgary.ca/~hugo/research.html
General characteristics of stack plumes
a) Looping, strong instability,
high degree of convective
turbulence, super adiabatic
lapse rate
b) Coning, near neutral
stability – sky are overcast
c) Fanning, surface inversion
d) Fumigation, a loft inversion
– morning following a night
of stable inversion -
e) Lofting, inversion below
stack – favorable conditions
as pollutant does not reach
ground
f) Trapping, inversion below
and above stack
Box Model
Box Model
• (Accumulation rate) = (flow rates in) – (flow rates out) +
(creation rate) – (destruction rate)
• Simplifying assumptions
• City is rectangle with dimensions W and L
• Atmospheric turbulence produces complete and total mixing of
pollutants up to mixing height (H)
• Turbulence is strong enough in the upwind direction that
pollution concentration is uniform in the whole volume
• Wind blow in X direction with velocity u. Velocity is constant
• Concentration of pollutant in the air entering the city is constant
is equal to b (background concentration)
• Emission rate of the city is Q (g/s). This is normally given as an
emission rate per unit area q (g/s-m2) Q=qA
• No pollutant leaves or enters through the top of the box
• Pollutant destruction rate is zero
Problem 3
• A City has the following descriptions: W=5km, L=15km, u=3m/s,
H=1000 m. The upwind or background concentration of CO is 5
ug/m3. The emission rate per unit area is 4 x 10-6 g/s-m2. What is the
concentration of CO over the City?
Pollutant Flux
• Flux due to advection
• Flux due to diffusion
• Fick’s Law
• Diffusion due to turbulence
• Diffusion due to shear
Stack height

• Effective stack height H = hs + Δh

Point source without reflection
Point source with reflection
Point source with reflection
Evaluation of Standard Deviation
• Pasquill-Gifford curves
• Restrictions
• Concentrations estimated from the use of these charts correspond to
sampling times of approximately 10 minutes
• Solid curves for rural whereas the dashed curves represent urban areas
• Estimated concentrations more nearly represent only the lowest several
hundred meters of the atmosphere
Dispersion Coefficients
Problem 1
Problem 2
Calculation of effective stack height
Problem 3
Maximum ground level concentration
• Effect of ground reflection is to increase the GL concentration as x
increases
• C cannot increase indefinitely
• Eventually diffusion will diminish
• Determining maximum concentrations
• One method by the graph developed by Turner
Maximum ground level concentration
Problem 4
Plume rise
• Three sets of parameters that control the plume rise
• Meteorological conditions
• Physical nature of the effluent
• Chemical nature of the effluent
• First thing to consider is to determine whether a plume actually
downwashes around the stack due to low velocity
Building downwash

Stack height must be sufficiently large

Sampling times
• Turner tables are for 10
minutes
• An equation to estimate
concentration from a single
source for time intervals
greater than 10 minutes
• Value of q is substantiated
by Nonhebel and generally
0.17
• EPA models assume 1-hour
for the Pasquill-Gillford
curves
• Correction factor as shown
in table
Problem 5
Line source
• Some situation such as series of industries located
along a river or harbour, or heavy traffic along a
straight stretch of highway, the pollution problem may
be modeled as a continuous emitting infinite line
source
• We use q (strength per unit distance) expressed as
g/s-m
• If the wind direction is angled add SinΦ
Line source
• Finite line
• Ends of the line source then are at two positions in the crosswind
direction y1 and y2 where y1<y2
Problem 6
Problem 7
Instantaneous release of puff
• Release of large pollutant might occur during
explosion or accidental spill
Problem 8
Area source
• Such as industrial sources
• Or group of residences
• Solved by method of superposition
• Total concentration at the receptor point is found by summing the
concentrations coming from the individual sources
• The problem becomes identifying the geometry or orientation of the
receptor with respect to the wind direction and each source location
Concentration due to decay
• Decay as it disperses
• Radioactive decay and reaction with other gases
• If it is assumed that the pollutant’s concentration is
undergoing a first-order reaction, then the pollutant’s
concentration C decreases exponentially with time t
Problem 9
Dispersion models

http://courses.washington.edu/cee490/PlumeD4.pdf
Preferred Models
AERMOD Modeling System The AMS/EPA Regulatory Model (AERMOD)
incorporates air dispersion based on planetary boundary layer turbulence
to incorporate surface and elevated sources, and both simple and
complex terrain. It is steady-state Gaussian model.
CALPUFF Modeling System - A non-steady-state puff dispersion model to
simulate time- and space-varying meteorological conditions on pollution
transport, transformation, and removal. CALPUFF can be applied for long-
range transport and for complex terrain.
BLP - A Gaussian plume dispersion model designed to handle unique
modeling problems associated with aluminum reduction plants, and other
industrial sources where plume rise and downwash effects from
stationary line sources are important.
CALINE3 CALINE3 is a steady-state Gaussian dispersion model designed to
determine air pollution concentrations at receptor locations downwind of
highways located in relatively uncomplicated terrain.
Photochemical models
Photochemical air quality models have become widely utilized tools for assessing the
effectiveness of control strategies by characterizing the chemical and physical processes
in the atmosphere. These models are applied at multiple geographical scales ranging
from local and regional to national and global.
Models-3/CMAQ - The latest version of the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ)
model has state-of-the-science capabilities for conducting urban to regional scale
simulations of multiple air quality issues, including tropospheric ozone, fine particles,
toxics, acid deposition, and visibility degradation.
CAMx - The Comprehensive Air quality Model with extensions (CAMx) simulates air
quality over many geographic scales. It handles a variety of inert and chemically active
pollutants, including ozone, particulate matter, inorganic and organic PM2.5/PM10, and
mercury and other toxics.
REMSAD - The Regional Modeling System for Aerosols and Deposition (REMSAD)
calculates the concentrations of both inert and chemically reactive pollutants by
simulating the atmospheric processes that affect pollutant concentrations over regional
scales. It includes processes relevant to regional haze, particulate matter and other
airborne pollutants, including soluble acidic components and mercury.
UAM-V – The Urban Airshed Model was a pioneering effort in photochemical air quality
modelling in the early 1970s and has been used widely for air quality studies focusing on
ozone.
Summary
• Gaussian Dispersion Modeling Concept
• Model Development – with reflection and without reflection
• Stability conditions
• Plume rise estimate
• Model Application – General and special case studies
• Puff Model - instantaneous
• Line sources
• Building wake effect
• Dispersion models overview