A literature survey on tracer experiments for atmospheric dispersion modelling studies

After the boom of purely theoretical work on the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere, considerable efforts are now invested in the experimental measurement of atmospheric dispersion and in model validation using tracer techniques. The actual state of the art is sketched by a literature survey. The available references are classified under four headings: (i) experimental papers describing sampling and analytical possibilities; (ii) qualitative atmospheric tracer experiments without mathematical treatment; (iii) tracer experiments for the determination of model parameters and (iv) tracer experiments for model validation. SF₆ is now the most popular tracer but perfluorocarbons are gaining interest for long-range dispersion experiments. Among the several dispersion parameter sets for the bi-Gaussian dispersion theorem, only few are strongly based on systematic tracer experiments. Many papers describe tracer dispersion experiments, but the comparison of measured with calculated concentrations for model validation is a research area where much work remains to be done.