Simulations of the dispersion of reactive pollutants in a street canyon, considering different chemical mechanisms and micromixing

The Stochastic Fields (SF) or Field Monte Carlo method has been used to model the dispersion of reactive scalars in a street canyon, using a simple chemistry and the CBM-IV mechanism. SF is a Probability Density Function (PDF) method which allows both means and variances of the scalars to be calculated as well as considering the effect of segregation on reaction rates. It was found that the variance of reactive scalars such as NO2 was very high in the mixing region at roof-top level with rms values of the order of the mean values. The effect of segregation on major species such as O-3 Was found to be very small using either mechanism, however, some radical species in CBM-IV showed a significant difference. These were found to be the seven species with the fastest chemical timescales. The calculated photostationary state defect was also found to be in error when segregation is neglected. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.