Observational systems and techniques in air pollution meteorology.

Abstract

The main goals of environmental assessment are to provide answers to one or both of the following questions: What is the current state of the atmosphere in the area of concern? and what changes in the state of the atmosphere are likely to result from certain actions that man might take? It follows that the principal activities in environmental assesment are (1) observation and (2) prediction. Observational activities must be considered of primary importance, because even predictions depend upon observations for input information and for techniques evaluation. The purposes of this paper are: To examine the role of observations and their interactions with predictive tools such as simulation models, and to review the status of available observational techniques. Although for convenience the primary emphasis in this paper is upon air quality assessment, most of the material is equally applicable to other types of environmental assessment, such as that related to the radiological environment in the vicinity of nuclear power plants or to inadvertent weather modification caused by heat and moisture releases from large cooling towers. (from paper)