Advances in Geosciences www.adv-geosci.net 1680-7340 1680-7359 25 Precipitation: Measurement, Climatology, Remote Sensing, and Modeling (EGU Session 2009) 2010 10.5194/adgeo-25-65-2010 http://www.adv-geosci.net/25/65/2010/ http://www.adv-geosci.net/25/65/2010/adgeo-25-65-2010.html http://www.adv-geosci.net/25/65/2010/adgeo-25-65-2010.pdf 65 70 2010-03-11 Wet scavenging of SO₂ emissions around India's largest lignite based power plant A. Rai S. Ghosh satyajitg@vit.ac.in S. Chakraborty School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, VIT University, India School of Electrical Sciences, VIT University, India School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK The Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) is among the largest lignite based power plants in South East Asia. The four elevated stacks from this power plant emanate a substantial amount of sulphur dioxide into a tropical boundary layer. Sulphur dioxide being a soluble pollutant gas is absorbed by falling raindrops. This is a first study that quantifies the scavenging action of the North Eastern monsoonal rains from a lignite based power plant. We find that although the North Eastern monsoonal rains have a preponderance of very large droplets, the contribution of the small droplets cannot be neglected. We expect that the estimated scavenging coefficients can be used by large eddy and climate models. Briggs, G. A.: Diffusion Estimation for Small Emissions, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ARL Report ATDL-106, 1973. Cracknell, A. P. and Varotsos, C. A.: The IPCC fourth assessment report and the fiftieth anniversary of sputnik, Environ. Sci. Pollut. R., 14(6), 384–387, 2007. Ferm, M., Watt, J., O'Hanlon, S., De Santis, F., and Varotsos, C.: Deposition measurement of particulate matter in connection with corrosion studies, Anal. Bioanal. Chem., 384(6), 1320–1330, 2006. Hales, J. M.: Fundamentals of the theory of gas scavenging by rain, Atmos. Environ., 6, 635–659. 1972. Marshall, J. S. and Palmer, W. M. K.: The distribution of raindrops with size, J. Meteorol., 5, 165–16, 1948. Roy, S. S., Datta, R. K., Bhatia, R. C., and Sharma, A. K.: Drop size distribution of tropical rain over south India, Geol. Geofiz., 22, 105–130, 2005. Seinfeld, J. H. and Pandis, S. P.: Atmospheric chemistry and physics, John Wiley and Sons, 2001. Varotsos, C. A., Tzanis, C., and Cracknell, A. P.: The enhanced deterioration of the cultural heritage monuments due to air pollution, Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res., 16, 590–592, 2009. Williams, C. R. and Gage, K. S.: Raindrop size distribution variability estimated using ensemble Statistics, Ann. Geophys., 27, 555–567, 2009.