PCAPS: Persistent Cold-Air Pool Study

Summary

Research Objectives: * determine processes responsible for formation, maintenance and destruction of multi-day wintertime temperature inversions or cold-air pools, * evaluate their influence on pollutant transport and mixing, and * determine how models can be improved to make more accurate forecasting of persistent cold-air pool events. Research Goals: * identify fundamental processes that lead to complete evolutionary cycle of persistent cold-air pools in the Salt Lake basin, * perform climatological analysis of cold-pools in this basin, including climatology of synoptic weather patterns associated with cold pool buildup and breakup, * make field measurements to identify and quantify cold-pool formation and breakup processes and to provide data suitable for testing of numerical models. * numerically simulate cold pool evolution and compare with field data, to gain understanding of the cold pool events and processes, and to identify needed model improvements. * determine the nature of (and, where possible, quantify) the interaction of synoptic flows above with flows within basin cold-air pools, and assess how such flows affect the formation and erosion of those pools and the dispersion of pollutants within them