An advanced monitoring station was set up in the center of Milan, Italy. It is made up of several instruments for the measurement of atmospheric pollutants, including a DOAS system which is able to provide information of the time evolution of several primary and secondary atmospheric pollutants. A radioactivity monitor provides information about the time evolution of Radon daughters, thereby providing information about the evolution of the boundary layer. It is shown that pollution by primary pollutants can be described through a very simple model based on Radon observation. Secondary pollutants, like ozone and nitrogen dioxide can also be described by the same model. Observation in strong advective condition and during stability periods show that the presence of large concentration of nitrogen dioxide is due to radicalic processes which are also responsible for the formation of formaldehyde. The role of nitrous acid in the formation of radicals is also discussed.

Date Published: 31 May 1995
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 2365, Optical Sensing for Environmental and Process Monitoring, (31 May 1995); doi: 10.1117/12.210801

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2365:
Optical Sensing for Environmental and Process Monitoring