On Turbulent Diffusion in an Arbitrarily Stratified Atmosphere

Abstract

In an atmosphere with a vertically non-uniform stratification the vertical concentration profile in the lee of a continuous point source can be obtained by a random-walk method, where the vertical step length for the jumping particles varies according to the stratification. As usual, only the form of the distribution is obtained by such a Fickian diffusion process, the entering parameters being taken from observations (diffusion experiments). An example has been computed showing the vertical concentration profiles varying with time downwind from sources at two different heights in an actual case during the destruction of an inversion.