Circulatory patterns of air pollutants within the Barcelona air basin in asummertime situation: Lidar and numerical approaches

This work examines circulatory patterns of air pollutants in the area of Ba rcelona (Spain), a region with strong coastal and orographic influences. Th is was achieved through exploitation of elastic-backscatter lidar data and by numerical simulation of the atmosphere with a meteorological mesoscale m odel (MEMO). Lidar data were acquired in July 1992 during a collaborative c ampaign between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Polytechnic U niversity of Catalonia (UPC). The lidar provided information about the dist ribution of aerosols and the prevailing winds, determined by application of a maximum cross-correlation algorithm to elastic-backscatter lidar data. L idar winds are used to evaluate high altitude winds simulated by the model. This study showed that circulatory patterns in Barcelona are correlated wi th daytime convective vertical mixing, sea-breeze circulations, and vertica l forcing caused by mountain thermal and mechanical effects.