Papers by Martin Piringer
Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 2007
Mean seasonal profiles of wind speed, standard deviation of the vertical velocity and turbulence ... more Mean seasonal profiles of wind speed, standard deviation of the vertical velocity and turbulence intensity from SODAR measurements in three cities of different size, Moscow, Hanover and Linz, are compared to analytical approximations for the Prandtl and Ekman layer. Typical urban features in the profiles and differences to measurements at rural sites are discussed. Typical urban features are a greater slope in the wind profiles, enhanced turbulence intensities, and a vertical increase in magnitude of the turbulence. The analytical approach proposed by ETLING for the description of the vertical wind profile in the whole boundary layer is amended in the Prandtl-layer part by a correction function for atmospheric stability. The amended profile description turns out to render the best results for the approximation of urban wind profiles within the lowest 500 m above ground.
Environmental Meteorology, 1988
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions, 2015
ABSTRACT The study of aerosols in the troposphere and in the stratosphere is of major importance ... more ABSTRACT The study of aerosols in the troposphere and in the stratosphere is of major importance both for climate and air quality studies. Among the numerous instruments available, aerosol particles counters provide the size distribution in diameter range from few hundreds of nm to few tens of μm. Most of them are very sensitive to the nature of aerosols, and this can result in significant biases in the retrieved size distribution. We describe here a new versatile optical particle/sizer counter (OPC) named LOAC (Light Optical Aerosols Counter), which is light and compact enough to perform measurements not only at the surface but under all kinds of balloons in the troposphere and in the stratosphere. LOAC is an original OPC performing observations at two scattering angles. The first one is around 12°, and is almost insensitive to the nature of the particles; the second one is around 60° and is strongly sensitive to the refractive index of the particles. By combining measurement at the two angles, it is possible to retrieve accurately the size distribution and to estimate the nature of the dominant particles (droplets, carbonaceous, salts and mineral particles) in several size classes. This speciation is based on calibration charts obtained in the laboratory. Several campaigns of cross-comparison of LOAC with other particle counting instruments and remote sensing photometers have been conducted to validate both the size distribution derived by LOAC and the retrieved particle number density. The speciation of the aerosols has been validated in well-defined conditions including urban pollution, desert dust episodes, fog, and cloud. Comparison with reference aerosol mass monitoring instruments also shows that the LOAC measurements can be successfully converted to mass concentrations. All these tests indicate that no bias is present in the LOAC measurements and in the corresponding data processing.
Two 1290 MHz Sodar/RASS instruments have been operated between November 2006 and June 2007 in an ... more Two 1290 MHz Sodar/RASS instruments have been operated between November 2006 and June 2007 in an industrially used narrow valley with an average crest height of approx. 300 m in Central Austria and in the Austrian flatlands east of Vienna. Vertical profiles of temperature, wind direction and speed, vertical velocity and sigma-w up to a height of 600 m above ground, i. e. well above average crest height at the valley site, have been obtained. Specific features of the valley atmosphere, like the change of wind direction and wind speed with height and the seasonal changes of wind speed and temperature are presented.
ABSTRACT In contrast to the classical homogeneous atmospheric boundary layer, the urban boundary ... more ABSTRACT In contrast to the classical homogeneous atmospheric boundary layer, the urban boundary layer is more complex due to several specific features and processes caused by the buildings which introduce a large amount of vertical surfaces, high roughness elements, and artificial materials. The most well-known result is the urban heat island, but urban areas also influence the wind field, precipitation, atmospheric stability, and the mixing height. The last two are essential to determine the spread of pollutants in urban areas. Atmospheric stability can properly be derived with 3D sonics via the sensible heat flux; The mixing height can be deduced from vertical temperature profiles provided by Sodar-RASS systems. The contribution will highlight the methodologies, give examples, and critically discuss advantages and shortcomings of the instruments and the methods applied.
Bioresource Technology, 2015
A micrometeorological method, combining an inverse dispersion technique with path-integrated conc... more A micrometeorological method, combining an inverse dispersion technique with path-integrated concentration measurements, was applied on an Austrian biogas plant over the period of more than one year to determine emissions of the whole plant. Measurement campaigns were conducted to characterize the emission response to operational activities (e.g. digestate management) and meteorological changes. When digestate storage tanks were filled, an average emission rate of 7.2kg CH4/h (approx. 4% of the calculated CH4 production) was determined, while 5.4kg CH4/h of emissions (approx. 3% of the calculated CH4 production) were quantified after the tanks had been emptied. It could be observed that besides the operation mode (e.g. filling level or agitation of the openly stored digestate, maintenance), the meteorological conditions such as wind speed and solar radiation (e.g. heat flux) can also affect the emission rate.
Advances in Science and Research, 2010
The meteorological impacts on pollen emission and spread in a typical Central European forest of ... more The meteorological impacts on pollen emission and spread in a typical Central European forest of mixed deciduous and coniferous trees are investigated. Pollen samples as well as meteorological measurements have been conducted during the flowering period of spring flowering tree species in 2009. An episodic event of pollen transport to the study area is analyzed in detail with the aid of hourly backwards trajectories. The results indicate that the experimental set-up was well designed for a thorough meteorological analysis of the pollen counts.
Waste management (New York, N.Y.), 2014
An inverse dispersion technique in conjunction with Open-Path Tunable-Diode-Laser-Spectroscopy (O... more An inverse dispersion technique in conjunction with Open-Path Tunable-Diode-Laser-Spectroscopy (OP-TDLS) and meteorological measurements was applied to characterise methane (CH4) emissions from an Austrian open-windrow composting plant treating source-separated biowaste. Within the measurement campaigns from July to September 2012 different operating conditions (e.g. before, during and after turning and/or sieving events) were considered to reflect the plant-specific process efficiency. In addition, the tracer technique using acetylene (C2H2) was applied during the measurement campaigns as a comparison to the dispersion model. Plant-specific methane emissions varied between 1.7 and 14.3 gCH4/m(3)d (1.3-10.7 kg CH4/h) under real-life management assuming a rotting volume of 18,000 m(3). In addition, emission measurements indicated that the turning frequency of the open windrows appears to be a crucial factor controlling CH4 emissions when composting biowaste. The lowest CH4 emission w...
Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research, 2001
Using a dispersion model to calculate ambient odour concentrations, the separation distance betwe... more Using a dispersion model to calculate ambient odour concentrations, the separation distance between livestock buildings and residential areas is defined by the odour impact criteria using a combination of a pre-selected odour threshold and an exceeding probability. The dynamic Austrian Odour Dispersion Model (AODM), a Gaussian model, is used to calculate the direction-dependent separation distances for several combinations of these two values, which represent the protection level of various land use categories. The calculated direction-dependent separation distances are a function of the prevailing wind velocity and atmospheric stability conditions. At a site in the Austrian North-alpine foreland, the direction-dependent separation distance (calculated on the basis of a two year time series of meteorological data) for pure residential areas (3% exceeding probability over the year for an odour threshold of 1 OU/m3) lies between 99 m (for northerly winds with a probability of less tha...
The assessment of the impact of environmental odour emissions is based on four steps: (1) the det... more The assessment of the impact of environmental odour emissions is based on four steps: (1) the determination of the odour flow of the source, (2) the dilution in the atmosphere, described by dispersion models, calculating time series of one-hour mean values, (3) short-time peak concentrations derived from one-hour mean values, to mimic odour sensation of the human nose, and (4) odour impact criteria, defined by the odour concentration threshold and its exceedance probability. The procedure of the determination of odour annoyance by the last two steps (peak-to-mean factor and odour impact criteria) is compared for various national jurisdictions showing a great variety of criteria. To reach a better comparability for separation distances, calculated by impact criteria for different countries, an alignment of the peak-to-mean factors and the odour impact criteria should be aspired. An important requirement to improve the reliability of the calculated separation distances is the use of a peak-to-mean factor, which decreases with distance from the source. The separation distances calculated for the same protection level but with different national odour impact criteria, contrary to expectation, are very different and show a stronger dependence on wind direction for higher exceedance probabilities. It must be concluded that the concept of odour impact criteria used in various jurisdictions should be harmonized. It is obvious that separation distances, calculated for an identical protection level, should be similar.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2002
State-of-the-art parameterizations of the urban atmospheric boundary layer applied to air polluti... more State-of-the-art parameterizations of the urban atmospheric boundary layer applied to air pollution dispersion modeling were reviewed by leading experts.
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Papers by Martin Piringer