Prospecting for Air Pollution Hot Spots in the Atmosphere using Lapse Rate

Document Type : High quality original papers

Authors

1 University of Education, Winneba

2 DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON

3 Department of Physics, University of Ghana

4 University of Ghana

Abstract

This paper studies lapse rates at various height ranges at one-meter intervals from the ground surface to a four-meter height to determine probable hot spots of pollutants produced by automobiles on the road. Arduino Mega 2560 with DHT22 temperature sensors was used to automate the measurement of daily temperatures for these various heights between 31st January 2020 to 27th March 2020 at the electronic entryway on the Legon-Gimpa Street, GPS location of 71.0 m above sea level, longitude 0.1983 o W, and latitude 5.6418 o N at the University of Ghana, Legon Campus, Ghana. The ground (0 m) to 1 m height range showed a positive lapse throughout the day, with a mean of 2.7770 oC/m. The mean lapse rate for the diurnal and nocturnal cycles for the 0 m to 1 m height range is 4.5332 oC/m and 1.0208 o C/m, respectively. The mean of the lapse rates from the ground to the 5 m height for the periods before, during, and after the sun are 0.2484, 1.6297 oC/m, 1.4410 oC/m, and 0.3172 oC/m respectively. The mean lapse rate for the diurnal and nocturnal cycles over the whole height range is 1.5353 oC/m and 0.2828 oC/m, respectively. The results show that the determined lapse rate is greater than the acknowledged lapse rate inside the troposphere of 0.0065 0C/m (6.5 oC/km).

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