RESEARCH AREAS
The research at CAPITA is in the areas of atmospheric aerosols, regional air pollution, and environmental informatics.
During the past two years, a previous Monte Carlo model was reimplemented onto the IBM-PC platform. This model was designed in a modular framework, separating the emissions, transport and kinetics calculations. The transport module employs a Monte Carlo technique for the simulation of atmospheric boundary layer physics. Kinetic processes are simulated using first order rate equations where the kinetic rate coefficients vary in space and time. The rate coefficients are determined via a tuning process comparing simulated and actual measurements.
A sizable research effort since the 1980s focuses on long-term air pollution trends spanning this century in the United States. This analysis includes state-by-state fuel use trends, sulfur and nitrogen emissions. At the same time, historical data from numerous sources are collected on sulfur and nitrogen deposition and airborne concentration. Visibility trends have also been compiled for North America and Europe. The CAPITA visibility trend analysis work contributed significantly to the deliberations for the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990.
| Sulfur and Nitrogen Emission Trends | Trend of U.S. Visibility |
| Tropospheric Aerosols Over the Oceans | Ambient Concentrations of Particulate Matter |
CAPITA researchers have pursued two complementary approaches to the source receptor relationship. In the receptor approach, the chemical composition of the ambient aerosol to apportion the contributions of different source types was used. In the source-oriented approach, a numerical model is used to simulate the dispersion and chemical reactions of pollutants emitted from specific sources.
The newest research activity at CAPITA on Environmental Informatics is, in a sense, a response to the "information age," "information revolution," and "information glut" in the environmental field.
Recent research includes, development of data structures for the transmission of environmental knowledge (geographic, animation, hypertext); the use and refinement of interactive, graphic data exploration, and analysis techniques (see Software Utilities); and application and demonstration of multimedia data delivery systems (e.g. Voyager, Movie, Hypertext software).
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