Modeling of plume downwash and enhanced diffusion near buildings: comparison to wind tunnel observations for an Arctic industrial site

• Main Authors: Guenther, A, Lamb, B, Petersen, R
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: eScholarship, University of California 1989
• Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences; Environmental Science and Management; Agriculture; Land and Farm Management; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences; Arctic; Prudhoe Bay
• Online Access: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7582954k

The ability of a modified Industrial Source Complex model to simulate concentration distributions resulting from high wind speeds (neutral conditions) has been evaluated by comparison to data from a wind tunnel study of a Prudhoe Bay, AK oil-gathering center characterized by short stacks and interconnected buildings. The model tends to predict correctly the concentrations further downwind (500-1700 m) and underpredict the higher concentrations in the building wake region from 3 to 10 building heights downwind (100-350 m). The model cannot be used to predict concentrations at downwind distances less than 100 m where the maximum concentrations typically occurred. A large variation in the amount of building enhanced diffusion was observed for different wind directions. -from Authors