A Brief Survey of the Meteorological Aspects of Atmospheric Pollution

Abstract

This article is intended to provide a brief survey of current knowledge of the meteorological aspects of air pollution for meteorologists and others who are not specialists in diffusion. Improved understanding of atmospheric dispersal processes has largely occurred in proportion to the amount of satisfactory empirical data available. The most comprehensive observations refer to small-scale processes, but considerable information on large-scale processes has been obtained in studies of radioactive fallout; comparable data for intermediate-scale processes of the type involved in community air pollution appear to be lacking. Although a satisfactory diffusion theory has not yet emerged, the outlook is encouraging.