Simulation of Pollutant Trajectories in Natural and Anthropogenic Events

Abstract

Several evidences support the idea that the Homo sapiens has become a geological force, which may introduce changes not only in human life but also in the life of all living species in the Earth and on the equilibrium of chemical and biochemical process. Nowadays, some anthropogenic events, such as accidents in industrial and energy supplies, mainly nuclear plants, may release huge quantities of pollutants which may affect Earths's life in a similar way than natural events, such as volcanic eruptions. In this work, the trajectory model HYSPLIT (Hybrid Singled-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory), which has an easy implementation, is presented to simulate the air trajectories. As case studies, a natural event, the Puyehue volcano (Chile) eruption, and a fire episode in the port area of Guarujá (SP, Brasil) were selected. The volcano eruption began on June 04, 2011 and the ashes first reached the region of Bariloche and Villa La Angostura (Argentina). Lately the ashes reached the North of Patagonia and Buenos Aires (Argentina) and finally Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and the South of Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina). The fire in Guarujá lasted 37 hours and began in a freight terminal on January 14, 2016. Toxic gases affected the accident area (Vicente de Carvalho District in the city of Guarujá, SP), and diffused in Guarujá, reaching Santos and Cubatão. Using HYSPLIT model, it was possible to reproduce the air masses trajectories in a good agreement with available data for both events. This study shows that the program, which can be used online, provides satisfactory results, consistent with satellite data and information from meteorological and air quality stations, both for natural events, such as volcanic eruptions and natural fires, and, also for accidents in industries, nuclear plants and fires.