Numerical Simulations of Dry and Wet Deposition over Simplified Terrains

Abstract

To evaluate the deposition amount on a ground surface, mesoscale numerical models coupled with atmospheric chemistry are widely used for larger horizontal domains ranging from a few to several hundreds of kilometers; however, these models are rarely applied to high-resolution simulations. In this study, the performance of a dry and wet deposition model is investigated to estimate the amount of deposition via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models with high grid resolution. Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations are implemented for a cone and a two-dimensional ridge to estimate the dry deposition rate, and a constant deposition velocity is used to obtain the dry deposition flux. The results show that the dry deposition rate of RANS generally corresponds to that observed in wind-tunnel experiments. For the wet deposition model, the transport equation of a new scalar concentration scavenged by rain droplets is developed and used instead of the scalar concentration scavenged by raindrops falling to the ground surface just below the scavenging point, which is normally used in mesoscale numerical models. A sensitivity analysis of the proposed wet deposition procedure is implemented. The result indicates the applicability of RANS for high-resolution grids considering the effect of terrains on the wet deposition.

Keywords

• atmospheric dispersion
• dry deposition
• high-grid resolution
• numerical simulation
• wet deposition