• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • Atmospheric Sciences
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • Atmospheric Sciences
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of Scholarworks@UACommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypeThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsType

    My Account

    Login

    First Time Submitters, Register Here

    Register

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    Assessment of particulate accumulation climatology under inversions in Glacier Bay for the 2008 tourist season using WRF/Chem data

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    Pirhalla_uaf_0006N_10147.pdf
    Size:
    11.79Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Pirhalla, Michael A.
    Chair
    Mölders, Nicole
    Committee
    Bhatt, Uma
    Polyakov, Igor
    Gende, Scott
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11122/4540
    Abstract
    Each summer, roughly one million tourists come to Southeast Alaska aboard cruise ships to see the pristine landscape and wildlife. Tourism is an integral component in the economy for most of the towns and villages on the Alaska Panhandle. With ship emissions only modestly regulated, there have been some concerns regarding the potential environmental impacts that cruise ships have on air quality, wildlife, and visitor experience. Cruise ships travel to remote regions, and are frequently the only anthropogenic emissions source in federally protected parks, such as Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. In the absence of winds and synoptic scale storm systems common in the Gulf of Alaska, temperature inversions frequently develop inside Glacier Bay due to radiative cooling influenced by the complex topography inside the park. Inversions act as a lid, and may trap pollutants from cruise-ship emissions depending on the meteorological conditions present. Since meteorological observations are sparse and frequently skewed to easily accessible locations, data from the Weather Research and Forecasting Model, coupled with a chemistry package (WRF/Chem), were used to examine the physical and chemical processes that are impossible to determine through direct observations. Model simulation data for 124 days during the 2008 tourist season (May 15 to September 15), including a cruise-ship emission inventory for all 225 cruise ship entries in Glacier Bay, was analyzed. Evaluation of WRF/Chem through meteorological observations reveals that the model accurately captures the synoptic conditions for most of the summer, despite problems with complex topography. WRF/Chem simulated quasi-multi-day inversion events, with strengths as high as 6.7 K (100 m)⁻¹. Inversions were present in all grid-cell locations in Glacier Bay, with inversions occurring on average of 42% of the days during the tourist season. WRF/Chem was able to model PM₁₀ (particulate matter with diameter less than 10 μm) concentrations from cruise ships, but the absence of aerosol monitoring sites does not allow us to confirm the results. However, no simulated particulates ever exceed the daily average National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) of 150 μg m⁻³. The high variability of particle concentrations in Glacier Bay suggests the need for an air quality observational network to further assess local air quality issues.
    Description
    Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2014
    Date
    2014-05
    Type
    Thesis
    Collections
    Atmospheric Sciences

    entitlement

     
    ABOUT US|HELP|BROWSE|ADVANCED SEARCH

    The University of Alaska Fairbanks is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educational institution and is a part of the University of Alaska system.

    ©UAF 2013 - 2023 | Questions? ua-scholarworks@alaska.edu | Last modified: September 25, 2019

    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.