Modeling Pollutant Transport during High-Ozone Episodes in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

Abstract

Abstract Airflow patterns and pollution transport in the southern Appalachian Mountains region of the southeastern United States are examined using mesoscale meteorological models and a Lagrangian particle dispersion model (LPDM). The two primary goals of this work are 1) to identify a meteorological modeling methodology that can be used in regional photochemical modeling, and 2) to identify large regional ozone precursor sources that may impact the southern Appalachians during periods having high ozone levels. Four episodes characterized by measured high levels of ozone (1-h average concentrations greater than 90 ppb) at remote monitoring sites are the focus of the modeling efforts. To address the first goal, several methods of airflow modeling involving varying degrees of complexity are examined to find one that reliably simulates the complex wind patterns that occur. A hydrostatic model with homogeneous initialization, a nonhydrostatic model with homogeneous initialization, and a nonhydrostatic model w...