An Evaluation of Air Pollution Exposures Due to the 1991 Kuwait Oil Fires Using a Lagrangian Model

The Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectories model was used to evaluate the impact of carbon soot and sulfur dioxide transport and dispersion from the Kuwaiti oil fires. The model, which was modified to account for the effect of the dense smoke plume on the meteorological dispersion environment, was evaluated by comparing simulation results to measurements of soot and SO sub(2) from three different aircraft sampling programs. Based on the measured data, a smoke-specific extinction coefficient of 4 m super(2)/g was found to give the best agreement, while the SO sub(2) measurements suggested using a 6%/h conversion rate. Using these values, agreement was found between model simulations and ground-level measurements of SO sub(2).