The Urban Dispersion Program is a multi-year project, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to better understand the flow and dispersion of airborne contaminants through and around the deep street canyons of New York City. The first tracer and meteorological field study was a limited study conducted during March 2005 near the Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan. Six safe, inert, gaseous perfluorocarbon tracers were released simultaneously at five street-level locations during two experimental days. In addition to collecting tracer data, meteorological data were also collected. Brookhaven National Laboratory conducted the bulk of the tracer and meteorological field efforts with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Stevens Institute of Technology assisting by measuring the vertical profile of winds. The Environmental Protection Agency worked with Brookhaven National Laboratory in accomplishing the personal exposure component of the study. This report presents some results from this analysis. In general, different release locations showed vastly different plume footprints for tracer materials, and the situation was made very complex with upwind and/or crosswind transport of tracer near street-level for the different release locations. Overall wind speeds and directions upwind and over the city were generally constant throughout each of the two experimental periods.
Revised: October 25, 2007 |
Published: August 9, 2006