Predicting the Visibility of Chimney Plumes: An Intercomparison of Four Models with Observations at a Well-Controlled Power Plant

摘要

Four models for the operational prediction of plume visibility have been run by their developers on data from the VISTTA field study at the Navajo Generating Station. The different models give substantially different predictions of plume dispersion, cross-plume concentration integrals, and plume-sky contrast. Two of the models predict plume-sky contrasts which differ qualitatively from those observed. Overall model performance is limited chiefly by dispersion module performance; given observed concentration integrals as inputs, three of the models correctly predict the qualitative features of observed contrast. Much of the observed variation in plume dispersion and concentration integrals appears to have been due to sub-scale fluctuations in atmospheric transport and source emissions. The effects of particles on observed plume contrast were less than the experimental uncertainty. (Copyright (c) 1985 Pergamon Press Ltd.)