Articles | Volume 18, issue 19
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-14695-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-14695-2018
Research article
 | 
12 Oct 2018
Research article |  | 12 Oct 2018

A comparison of plume rise algorithms to stack plume measurements in the Athabasca oil sands

Mark Gordon, Paul A. Makar, Ralf M. Staebler, Junhua Zhang, Ayodeji Akingunola, Wanmin Gong, and Shao-Meng Li

Data sets

Monitoring air quality in Alberta oil sands ECCC - Environment and Climate Change Canada https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/oil-sands-monitoring/monitoring-air-quality-alberta-oil-sands.html

CEMS data ECCC - Environment and Climate Change Canada http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/arqi/ACP-2017-1215/CAC_inventory.tz

Historical monitoring data WBEA - Wood Buffalo Environmental Monitoring Association http://www.wbea.org/network-and-data/historical-monitoring-data

Short summary
This work uses aircraft-based measurements of smokestack plumes carried out in northern Alberta in 2013. These measurements are used to test equations used to predict how high in the air smokestack plumes rise. It is important to predict plume rise height accurately as it tells us how far downwind pollutants are carried and what air quality can be expected at the surface. We found that the equations that are typically used significantly underestimate the plume rise at this location.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint