TRACT

Transport of Pollutants over Complex Terrain

Completed


Type of Structure: coordinated project
Regional Scope: continental in the area: Europe
Parent Organisations: EUROTRAC.EUREKA
Child Organisations:
Duration : 0 to 1995 COMPLETED
Contact Address: no office contact defined


General information and objectives

(Joint project with the EC)
TRACT has mounted a large field campaign to study the effect of complex terrain, such as hills and valleys, on the transport of pollutants.
Coordinator: Franz Fiedler (KfK, Karlsruhe)
Deputy: Niels Otto Jensen (Riso National Laboratory, Roskilde)

Scientific aims:
• To study orographic effects on atmospheric transport and exchange processes within the boundary layer over complex terrain, with special reference to turbulent dispersal, channelling and mountain induced wind systems.
• To estimate the handover of air pollutants from the atmospheric boundary layer to the free troposphere.

Highlights of TRACT scientific results
The experimental area for the TRACT campaign in September 1992 covered most of Baden Wuertemberg in Germany and parts of France and Switzerland. Five aircraft collected data over the area together with several motor gliders and balloons.
On the ground a number of special measuring sites were set up, and national monitoring networks in France, Switzerland and Germany were also involved.
The ground level equipment ran continuously throughout the experimental period, and three special intensive observational phases of 24 or 36 hours were completed. A field phase report has been recently published.
Ten separate databases have been established for aerological data, synoptic data, aircraft measurements, surface measurements, tracer measurements, background data, land-use data and topography, the emission inventory, aircraft measurements in the nested area and for deposition data. When the data have been submitted and checked for consistency the ten will be combined in the TRACT database. Great efforts were made to ensure that data of good quality and comparability were collected so that now EUROTRAC is in possession of perhaps the best data set ever obtained from this sort of study.
The fully interpreted the data should provide a better understanding of the way pollutants are transported through and over complex terrain and how and in what quantity pollutants are handed over from the boundary layer close to the ground into the free troposphere above.


Last update: 5/6/22
Source of data: ProClim- Research InfoSystem (1993-2024)

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