Design and implementation of the winter haze intensive tracer experiment

Protection of vistas for certain national parks and wilderness areas as provided by the clean air act amendments of 1977 has stimulated an interest in visibility research. Methods are being developed and used to characterize atmospheric transparency, to identify the relative importance of the various particulate and gaseous atmospheric materials and to determine the role of man -made emissions. Much of the research has been conducted in the dessert southwest, in particular in northern Arizona and southern Utah. According to the authors,the juxtaposition of energy resources (especially coal) and national parks (including Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands) in an area where small changes in aerosol concentration can significantly affect visibility justifies concern by government and private organizations for visibility impacts resulting from industrial emissions.Accordingly, a cooperative effort, the subregional cooperative electric utility, national park service (NPS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Defense (DOD) study, SCENES, is centered in this area. It operates on a five-year plan (1984-1989) involving continual visibility and aerosol measurements at a dozen locations, plus more in-depth intensive and special studies conducted over shorter, seasonally representative periods. In this paper, the authors discuss the winter haze intensive tracer experiment (WHITEX) which was conducted inmore » January and February 1987 in the Colorado River area of the Colorado Plateau.« less