A simple way of computing buoyant plume rise in Lagrangian stochastic dispersion models

A simple and easy to use method to include Eulerian plume rise in Lagrangian particle models is presented. This approach takes into account the vertical variation of wind and stability. Its ability to realistically simulate plume rise and spread, both through numerical experiments under typical atmospheric conditions and by comparison with actual plumes detected by a Differential Lidar in a case study, is shown. Despite its simplicity, our method proved to describe the main plume rise characteristics in a satisfactory way and to yield a fair agreement among observed and predicted plume centreline heights and standard deviations.