HYSPLIT4: A useful tool in performing air mass analysis

Air pollution and the environmental processes governing transport of pollutants require extensive knowledge of the local meteorology as well as an inventory of possible pollution sources. numerous computer programs have been developed which use such information to simulate the transport and dispersion of pollutants. a code commonly used for this purpose,is hysplit4 (hybrid single particle langranian integrated trajectories),developed by the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa),usa. in this study,hysplit4 was used to investigate the variations in the amount of sulphate throughout the pacific 2001 field campaign,conducted by meteorological services of canada (msc) in august 2001 in vancouver,british columbia (bc). air mass analysis performed on this data using hyslpit4 highlights the importance of meteorology and knowledge of the location and nature of possible pollution sources in interpreting the data obtained during air quality studies.