AN APPLICATION OF CALPUFF DISPERSION MODEL TO A NON-STANDARD PROBLEM
Pulp and paper mill situated in the complex terrain of northern Slovakia, in the close vicinity of the city of Ružomberok, continuously releases to atmosphere 30 kg of water vapor per second. Impressive clouds above the industrial complex have given rise to concerns from the side of local citizens, suspecting the emissions to be responsible for the local increase in precipitation. Therefore, a complex study has been initiated, including model simulation of the dispersion of water vapor from the paper mill focused on the domain of 8 x 7 km in close vicinity of the paper mill. Phase conversions of water vapor in the atmosphere are a complex thermodynamic process involving many factors. However, we found out that for some practical applications a simplified approach is sufficient to assess the magnitude of the above mentioned effects. A combination of CALMET-CALPUFF models were applied to compute hourly concentrations of water vapor added to the atmosphere by emissions from the paper mill; these were compared to the hourly absolute humidity values as measured by the meteorological stations in the region, which are not supposed to be affected by the paper mill. The interest was focused on those hours in which the “background” absolute humidity was below saturation value, but additional vapor from the paper mill would bring the value to or above the saturation point. Winter periods of two years (2005, 2006) were modeled and analyzed, during which 66 hours occurred when the additional water from the paper mill caused the humidity to exceed the saturation point, compared to 478 hours with 100% background relative humidity, when the additional vapor from the mill could possibly strengthen the icing effect which would occur anyway. The study concludes that the contribution of the paper mill to total precipitation is negligible even in the close vicinity of the factory. However, in certain cases it can cause icings on a nearby E50 road communication; although these cases are not frequent, they can lead to fatal outcomes. The uncertainties associated with the study method are also discussed.
Quantifying Precipitation Suppression Due to Air Pollution
Urban air pollution and industrial air pollution have been shown qualitatively to suppress rain and snow. Here, precipitation losses over topographical barriers downwind of major coastal urban areas in California and in the land of Israel that amount to 15%‐25% of the annual precipitation are quantified. The suppression occurs mainly in the relatively shallow orographic clouds within the cold air mass of cyclones. The suppression that occurs over the upslope side is coupled with similar percentage enhancement on the much drier downslope side of the hills. The evidence includes significant decreasing trends of the ratio of hill to coast precipitation during the twentieth century in polluted areas in line with the increasing emissions during the same period, whereas no trends are observed in similar nearby pristine areas. The evidence suggests that air-pollution aerosols that are incorporated in orographic clouds slow down cloud-drop coalescence and riming on ice precipitation and hence delay the conversion of cloud water into precipitation. This effect explains the pattern of greatest loss of precipitation at the midlevel of the upwind slopes, smaller losses at the crest, and enhancement at the downslope side of the hills.
European Consumer Access to Justice Revisited
Part I. Setting the Stage: Access to Justice 2.0: 1. At the very outset 2. Access to justice 2.0: breaking it into pieces Part II. Procedural Law: The Traditional Pillar of Access to Justice 2.0: 3. A brief outline of the developments at the pan-EU level 4. Prime examples 5. Compensatory collective redress: the next step? 6. Where to go from here? Part III. Substantive Law: Complementing Access to Justice 2.0: 7. Widening the scope of the value-oriented justice discussion 8. Substantive consumer law-making in the course of time 9. Recent trends and developments 10. The common European sales law 11. Summarising comments on the defragmentation of substantive consumer laws in the context of the CRD and the CESL Part IV. Consumer Access to Justice 2.0: A Multidimensional Framework: 12. From the current state of consumer law to consumer access to justice 2.0 13. The justice debate and consumer legislation 14. (Responses to) counter-arguments to third-party intervention 15. Consumer empowerment 16. Lessons to be drawn.