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Transport of the smoke plume from Chiado’s fire in Lisbon (Portugal) sensed by atmospheric electric field measurements

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Abstract

The Chiado’s fire that affected the city centre of Lisbon (Portugal) occurred on 25th August 1988 and had a significant human and environmental impact. This fire was considered the most significant hazard to have occurred in Lisbon city centre after the major earthquake of 1755. A clear signature of this fire is found in the atmospheric electric field data recorded at Portela meteorological station about 8 km NE from the site where the fire started at Chiado. Measurements were made using a Benndorf electrograph with a probe at 1-m height. The atmospheric electric field reached 510 V/m when the wind direction was coming from SW to NE, favourable to the transport of the smoke plume from Chiado to Portela. Such observations agree with predictions using Hysplit air mass trajectory modelling and have been used to estimate the smoke concentration to be ~0.4 mg/m3. It is demonstrated that atmospheric electric field measurements were therefore extremely sensitive to Chiado’s fire. This result is of particular current interest in using networks of atmospheric electric field sensors to complement existing optical and meteorological observations for fire monitoring.

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Notes

  1. The convention is that PG = dV I /dz, where V I is the potential difference between the Ionosphere and Earth’s surface and z the vertical coordinate. It is defined to be positive for fair-weather days and is related with the vertical component of the atmospheric electric field by E z  = −PG.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory for the provision of the Hysplit transport and dispersion model and to Google Earth API for open the .kml file extension used in this article. Gratitude is expressed to Claudia Serrano and Samuel Bárias for digitalizing the data recorded Doctor Mário Figueira, who the authors also acknowledge. Hugo G. Silva acknowledges a discussion with José Fernando Borges that triggered the research here presented. Finally, special thanks are given to three anonymous reviewers for their valuable work in reviewing the initial manuscript.

Funding

Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) funded this research through the program Pest/OE/CTE/UI0078/2014. FCT also supported the participation of Hugo G. Silva (Postdoc grant: SFRH/BPD/63880/2009) and Marta Melgão (PhD grant: SFRH/BD/89218/2012) in this work. Ricardo Conceição was funded by a research grant from a FCT/COMPETE project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029197 PTDC/GEO-FIQ/4178/2012, which Hugo G. Silva is responsible for.

Conflict of interests

The research here presented was not initially part of the research plan of FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029197 PTDC/GEO-FIQ/4178/2012 project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física, Instituto de Ciências da Terra (ICT), Universidade de Évora, Rua Romão Ramalho, 59, Évora, Portugal

    Ricardo Conceição, Marta Melgão, Hugo G. Silva & António H. Reis

  2. Atmospheric Chemistry Research Group, University of Bristol, Cantock’s Close, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK

    Hugo G. Silva

  3. Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6BB, UK

    Keri Nicoll & Richard G. Harrison

Authors
  1. Ricardo Conceição
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  2. Marta Melgão
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  3. Hugo G. Silva
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  4. Keri Nicoll
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  5. Richard G. Harrison
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  6. António H. Reis
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Correspondence to Hugo G. Silva.

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Conceição, R., Melgão, M., Silva, H.G. et al. Transport of the smoke plume from Chiado’s fire in Lisbon (Portugal) sensed by atmospheric electric field measurements. Air Qual Atmos Health 9, 275–283 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-015-0337-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-015-0337-4

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