On the modeling of atmospheric pollutant dispersion during a diurnal cycle: A finite element study

In this paper, we present a numerical model to study pollutant dispersion in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). The model accounts for the mechanisms of advection by the mean wind in the horizontal direction, turbulent diffusion in the vertical direction to ground surface, dry deposition, and radioactive decay. More importantly, the model is capable of accounting for the evolution of the ABL structure over a diurnal cycle by considering parameterizations for the wind-speed and eddy-diffusivity profiles that depend on the atmospheric stability condition, which in turn undergoes dramatic changes throughout the day. To solve the resulting advection-diffusion equation, we propose a numerical method based on a stabilized finite element formulation. After validating the numerical model by simulating classical experiments and comparing its predictions with those available in literature, we study the dispersion of a pollutant during a full diurnal ABL cycle with the meteorological parameters generated by AERMET for a 24-h period on a 1-h basis.