Deposition around a coal-fired power station during a wintertime precipitation event

The contribution to local wet deposition of emissions from a coal-fired power station at Inkoo on the south coast of Finland has been investigated during a wintertime precipitation event. Making use of intensive radiosonde and weather radar observations of meteorological factors, concentrations of sulphur in deposition due to plume washout were predicted by a short-range deposition model. The model used the scavenging coefficient to parametrize the wet removal of pollutants, and it took into account the wind drift of falling precipitation particles within the plume. The model predictions were then compared with the chemical analysis results from snowfall samples collected within 10 km of the power station during the experiment.The experiment was performed ahead of a deeply-occluded front during a period with strong advection of long-range transported pollutants. No reliable sign of the influence of the power station on the sulphate deposition could be identified. On the other hand, the deviations of acidity from the mean pH-value of 4.1 were concentrated in one sector near the expected area of deposited plume pollutants. If local emissions were responsible for these deviations, the explanation may lie in a slightly incorrectly estimated plume direction or the effects of alkaline fly ash. Nevertheless, definite conclusions cannot be drawn, because only a few collectors happened to be sited in the modelled sector of plume washout and none in its maximum area.