Early Smoke Plume and Cloud Formation by Large Area Fires.
Abstract
It is likely that a nuclear burst over an urban area would cause a large number of fires burning simultaneously over hundreds of square kilometers. The atmospheric heating produced by these fires would result in low-level convergence over a broad region and a highly buoyant upward mass flux over the fire, lofting large quantities of smoke and moisture to high altitudes. This report presents the results of highly resolved numerical calculations describing the early-time cloud and smoke plume formation by large city fires. The simulations show that atmospheric moisture contributes significantly to plume evolution through latent heat release. The model indicates that early scavenging of smoke particles by precipitation is likely to reduce the amount of smoke injected into the upper atmosphere. A principal result is that plume rise is controlled primarily by fire intensity and atmospheric stratification rather than fire size. Keywords: Cloud formation, Fire heating, Nuclear winter, Precipitation scavenging, Smoke injection, Smoke plume, Urban fires.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 29, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA192056
Entities
People
- K. E. Heikes
- L. M. Ransohoff
- R. D. Small