DYNAMICS OF AIR POLLUTION

SCALES OF AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS

AIR POLLUTION METEOROLOGY

DR. S.M. SHIVA NAGENDRA

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
ENVIRONMENTAL AND WATER RESOURCES
DIVISION
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MADRAS
Email:snagendra@iitm.ac.in
DYNAMICS OF AIR POLLUTION

Types of air pollution problem

Sl. Type of the Scale
No problem
1 Indoor 10-2 to 10-1 km
2 Local 10-1 to 10 km
3 Urban 10 to 102 km
4 Regional 102 to 103 km
5 Continental 103 to 104 km
6 Hemispheric 104 to 2x104 km
7 Global 4x104 km
 SCALES OF AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS
Local Scale
up to 5 km of the earth surface
Impacts from a single source or group of
sources
Health impacts on specific receptors

Urban Scale
Order of 50 km

Regional Scale
500 to several thousand km2

County to Continental Scale

Tens of thousands of km2
May address international transboundary
pollution

Global Scale
extends worldwide
Transport of pollutants across globe
4
 LEVELS FOR UAQM
• International Action:
• Greenhouse gases
• Ozone
• Secondary particles,
• Biomass burning
• Shipping
• Aircraft

• National Actions:
• Technology controls (fuels, engines, FGD etc),
• Fiscal measures (taxes/duty, economic incentives etc.)
• National transport policies.

• Regional Actions:
• Transport and land-use issues.
• Regional transport issues

• Local Actions:
• Hot-spot areas
• Land-use and transport planning
• Public transport
LOCAL AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS
• Characterized by one or several large emitters or a large number of
small emitters
• Low release height House
House
Road

School Zone of
air pollution

House

Wind Source

EX:2
Receptors

Receptors

Local scale of the air pollution problem

URBAN AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS
• Consists of center of the city surrounded by suburbs which in turn surrounded by nonurban
hinterland (villages).

• Two types of problem: (i) Release of primary pollutants i.e. CO

(ii) formation of secondary pollutants i.e. O3

Annual
average
pollution
concentration

B
C

Hinter suburb Outer Center city Outer suburb Hinter

land city city land

Annual average pollution concentration over an urban area.

REGIONAL AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS

• Urban oxidants
Release of relatively slow reacting primary air pollutants
SO2 + O2 = 2 SO3
SO3 + HO2 = 2 H2SO3
Sulfuric acid reacts with numerous compounds to form sulfates

• Acid rain
- Rainout: occurs when particles serve as condensation nuclei that lead to
the formation of clouds and fall as raindrops (after sufficient growth of
particles)
- Washout- particles in air captured by raindrops
Both mechanisms contribute to acid rain
• Visibility
reduced by specific plumes or regional levels of PM that produce various
intensities of haze
CONTINENTAL AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS
• In Europe little difference between continental and regional scale

– Acid rain in Scandinavia has been considered to have impacts from

Great Britain and Western Europe
(SO2 transfer from UK to European continent)
– Japan air pollution impacts from China and Korea
– North American acid rain problem
GLOBAL AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS

• Transport of pollutant around the globe

- Stratospheric transport of radioactive waste resulting from testing the

nuclear weapons.
URBAN AIR POLLUTION DYNAMICS

Meteorology
Sources
-Wind speed
-Industry -Wind Direction
-Domestic -Atmospheric Stability
-Transport

Transmission Ambient air pollution

(Dispersion + Dilution+ concentration Exposure
Emission Chemical Reaction)

Deposition
AIR POLLUTION METEOROLOGY
 COMPOSITION OF THE ATMOSPHERE
Chemical compound Concentr ation Concentr ation
(ppm)a (µg/m 3)b

Nitrogen (N2) 780,000 8.95 x 108

Oxygen (O 2) 209,400 2.74 x 108

Ar gon (Ar ) 9,300 1.52 x107

Car bon dioxide 315 5.67 x105

(CO 2)
Neon (Ne) 18 1.49 x104

Helium (He) 5.2 8.50 x102

Methane (CH 4) 1.2 7.87 x102

Kr ypton (Kr ) 1.0 3.43 x103

Hydrogen (H 2) 0.5 4.13 x101

Xenon (Xe) 0.08 4.29 x102

Nitrous oxide (N2O) 0.5 9.00 x102

Ozone (O 3) 0.01-0.04 1.96 x101 –7.84 x101

Layers of the Atmosphere
 IMPORTANCE OF AIR POLLUTION METEOROLOGY

• Influence in pollutant dispersion

• Influence in pollutant transport

• Helps to locate air pollution monitoring stations

• Helps to develop implementation plans to bring ambient air quality into

compliance with standards

• Helps to predict the ambient impact of a new source of air pollution

• Helps to determine the effect on air quality from modifications to existing

sources

• Global warming and climate change

 RADIATION
Radiation is the transfer of heat energy
without the involvement of a physical
substance in the transmission. Radiation
can transmit heat through a vacuum.

The process of atmospheric scattering

causes rays of sunlight to be redirected to a
new direction after hitting a particle in the
atmosphere

sunlight is absorbed by an atmospheric

particle, transferred into heat energy, and
then converted into long wave radiation
emissions
GLOBAL MODIFICATION OF INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION
BY ATMOSPHERIC AND SURFACE PROCESSES
 DAYLIGHT DURATION

• affects the amount of insolation received

• longer the period of sunlight, the greater insolation

Seasonal variations in daylight duration

GLOBAL SHORTWAVE RADIATION DISTRIBUTION
 HEAT BALANCE

The mean annual radiation and heat balance of the atmosphere relative to 100
units of incoming solar radiation
 TRANSPORT OF HEAT

• Heat is transferred by conduction,

convection, and advection

• Conduction is the process by which heat

energy is transmitted through contact
with neighboring molecules

• Convection transmits heat by transporting

groups of molecules from place to place
within a substance. Convection occurs in
fluids such as water and air, which move
freely.

• Advection occurs mainly by horizontal

motion rather than by vertical movement
of air
 ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION

• Horizontal motion
– Movement of air depends on air pressure, wind, and air masses

• Vertical motion
– The basic principles include instability, stability, and plume behavior
 WIND
• Wind can be defined simply as air in
motion

• Speed of wind varies from absolute calm

to speeds as high as 380 kilometers per
hour

• Coriolis Force Pressure, Gradient Force

and Friction are the three forces that
determine wind direction and speed
 CORIOLIS FORCE

• The Coriolis force is caused by the

Earth's rotation around its axis. It is a
strange force, but plays a very important
role in air flow.
FORMATION OF WIND AS A RESULT OF LOCALIZED
TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES
 PRESSURE GRADIENT FORCE

• Pressure change over a unit distance is called pressure gradient force, and
the greater this force the faster the winds will blow

• Is the primary force influencing the formation of wind from local to global
scales
 INVERSIONS
It occur whenever warm air rises over cold air and "traps" the cold air beneath

WARM FRONT:
WIND Front boundary;
inversion

WARM AIR COLD AIR

COLD FRONT:

WIND
WARM AIR
COLD AIR
inversion
 TOPOGRAPHICAL
INFLUENCES

• The physical characteristics of the

earth's surface are referred to as
terrain features or topography

• grouped into four categories: flat,

mountain/valley, land/water, and
urban
 FLAT TERRAIN

Variation of wind with height over different surface roughness elements

(Figures are percentages of gradient wind)
MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY BREEZES

Day time development of valley breeze

Night time development of mountain breeze

 LAND/WATER

Day time development of sea breeze

Night time development of land breeze

THE URBAN HEAT ISLAND
LAYERS WITHIN THE URBAN BOUNDARY LAYER
 AIR POLLUTION METEOROLOGY

Principle parameters for air pollutant transport and dilution

MONITORING
STATION

The atmosphere’s role in air pollution

 1. Temperature

Generally the smoke has a higher temperature at the output of the chimney.
The plume will ascend through the combined effect of the initial speed and buoyancy.

2. Humidity

Water- vapour amount in the ambient air. Warmer air can hold more water vapour at
equilibrium than colder air. If air is cooled below the saturation temperature, some of
the water vapour condenses into liquid, which releases latent heat and warms the air.

3. Pressure

Air normally would tend to flow directly from high pressure regions towards regions of
low pressure, which in the horizontal usually means from a cold area toward a warm area.

4. Wind speed

The process of transport is driven by the vectorial field of the wind. A smoke which is
released by a chimney will be transported along a stream line of the vector field.
 5. Wind direction

Wind is circular, in air pollution meteorology wind is represented in 16 direction

N, NNE, NE, ENE, E, ESE, SE, SSE, S, SSW, SW, WSW, W, WNW, NW, NNW.
The wind direction provides the downwind movement of pollutant concentration
from the stack.

6. Mixing height / layer

The vertical extent to which air pollutants mixing takes place from the ground
surface. The dispersion of pollutants in the lower atmosphere is greatly aided
by mixing height. It varies diurnally from season to season and it also affected
by topographical features.

6. Stability

The amount of turbulence in the ambient air has major effect upon the rise of
stack gas plumes and upon the subsequent dispersion of pollutants. The amount
turbulence can be categorized into different stability classes.

The most widely used turbulence categories are Pasquill stability

classes A to F, consists of stable, neutral and unstable categories.
ATMOSPHERIC STABILITY

The lapse rate is defined as the negative of the rate of change in

temperature with altitude in an atmosphere (- 9.8o C/km)

Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate

1 km

Elevation
(km)

T – 9.8 o C
T
Temperature (o C)
 Stable atmosphere:

it is one which does not exhibit much vertical mixing or motion. As a result,
pollutants emitted near the earth’s surface tend to remain there.

Unstable atmosphere:

in unstable atmosphere, any rising air parcel will cool more slowly than surrounding
ambient air. As a result, it becomes more buoyant and tend to continue its upward
motion. This condition rapidly disperse the air pollutants in the ambient environment.

Neutral atmosphere:

in this condition, the rising or sinking air parcel will cool or heat at the same rate as the
surrounding ambient air. Thus, vertical air motion will neither be enhanced nor
suppressed.

Inversions:

in this condition temperature increases with altitude. Atmospheric inversions influence

the dispersion of pollutants by restricting vertical mixing and their by increases local
concentrations.
 STABILITY AND PLUME BEHAVIOR
Fanning
– The plume has a large spread horizontally and very little
vertically.
– Typically occurs at night in a very stable boundary layer
with strong surface inversion and weak variable winds

Fumigation
– Is when the plume material gets rapidly brought down to
the ground level due to downward mixing
– This situation occurs shortly after sunrise due to surface
heating and is slowly replaced by an unstable layer that
grows up to the top of the plume
– This condition is usually short-lived but results in the
highest ground level concentrations

Looping
– Occurs in very unstable and convective conditions during
midday and afternoon
– Large convection eddies take the plume material in
successively upward and downward motions
 STABILITY AND PLUME BEHAVIOR
Coning
– This is when the plume looks like a cone in both
the horizontal and vertical scale
– This usually occurs under cloudy and windy
conditions

Lofting
– The plume stays above the surface inversion
– This occurs shortly after transition from unstable to
stable conditions near sunset.
– The plume can be thin or become quite thick
– Depending on the height of the stack and the rate
of deepening of the inversion layer, the lofting
condition may be very transitory or it may persist for
several hours

Trapping
– Plumes released in unstable atmosphere disperse
their material uniformly throughout the air (the
Planetary Boundary Layer PBL)
– Trapping can lead to very high ground level
concentrations when the inversion layer is low and
there are weak winds
 Reading Assignment -2

• Chapter 3: Scales of Air Pollution Problems

(Reference 5)
• Chapter 8: Meteorology and Natural
Purification Processes –Up to Section 8.10
(Reference 1)
• Chapter 3: Meteorology - Up to section 3.6
(Reference 2)
THANK YOU