Tracer Experiment for the Investigation of Urban Scale Dispersion of Air Pollutants - Simulation by CALPUFF Dispersion Model and Diffusion Feature of Tracer Gases

A series of tracer experiments for the evaluation of atmospheric dispersion was performed over the urban area of Seoul using two inert, non-deposition perfluorocarbon (PMCH and m-PDCH) gases during three years campaign on 2002, 2003 and 2005. 30 sampling sites for collecting these tracers were located along two arcs of 2.5 and 5 kilometers downwind from the release point. About ten measurements which each lasted for 2 hours or 4 hours were made over the two consecutive days during each campaign. CALPUFF and MM5 meteorological model were applied to evaluate the urban dispersion in detail. Size of Modeling domain was 27 km x 23 km and the fine nest in the modeling domain had a grid size of 0.5 km. The results showed that CALPUFF dispersion model had a tendency to estimate tracer concentrations about 2-5 times less than those of ambient samples under many conditions. These consistent inaccuracy in urban dispersion was attributed to inherent inaccuracy and lack of details in terrain data at urban area.