Simulation study for gaseous fluxes from an area source using computed tomography and optical remote sensing

This paper presents a new approach to quantify emissions from fugitive gaseous air pollution sources. We combine Computed Tomography (CT) with Path-integrated Optical Remote Sensing (PI-ORS) concentration data in a new field beam geometry. Path integrated concentrations are sampled in a vertical plane downwind from the source along several radial beam paths. An innovative CT technique, which applies the Smooth Basis Function Minimization (SBFM) method to the beam data in conjunction with measured wind data, is used to estimate the total flux from an area source. We conducted simulation study to evaluate the proposed methodology under two beam geometry and configurations. This approach was found to be robust for a wide range of fluctuating wind directions. In the very sparse beam geometry we examined (5 beam paths), successful emission rates were retrieved over a 70 degrees range of wind directions.