Premium
Multiple state stochastic models for the long‐range transport and removal of atmospheric tracers
Author(s) -
Egbert Gary D.,
Baker Marcia B.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49711247315
Subject(s) - precipitation , deposition (geology) , range (aeronautics) , statistical physics , transformation (genetics) , particle (ecology) , schematic , stochastic modelling , environmental science , mathematics , meteorology , physics , statistics , geology , chemistry , materials science , paleontology , biochemistry , oceanography , electronic engineering , sediment , engineering , composite material , gene
We discuss a general mathematical framework for modelling long‐term average concentration and deposition patterns for atmospheric tracers which are subject to removal and transformation. For a generalized ‘particle’ which can exist in a finite number of states, the joint statistics of random particle transport and interstate transformation can be used to calculate long‐term mean fields for deposition and concentration. We show that a number of models presented in the recent literature can be considered as simple cases of this formulation. These models generally assume a weak statistical relationship between vertical transport, horizontal transport and removal processes. We consider a general approach to linking these processes, based on calculating approximate transport statistics conditional on particle states. We demonstrate this approach with a rather schematic, but almost analytically solvable, stochastic model which allows for the linkage of transport and removal processes. We use these ideas to construct a two‐layer model of the transport and removal of sulphur in a region of convective precipitation, demonstrating how the correlation of vertical transport and precipitation can change the precipitation statistics in the particles' Lagrangian frame and hence affect deposition patterns.