Long range transport of acid rain precursors

Abstract

A model of the long range transport of primary and secondary pollutants derived by Fay and Rosenzweig (1) is applied to the problem of the transport of acid rain precursors. The model describes the long term average (annual or seasonal) airborn pollutant concentration due to a single source. Because the chemical transformation and physical deposition processes are assumed to be linear in the concentrations, the contributions of many sources may be determined by superposition. Simplified forms of the source-receptor relation are derived for ranges of the model parameters which are appropriate to sulfur oxide species. Quantitative results of applying the model to airborn sulfate3 in the eastern U.S. are compared with more complex models.