The Bolzano Tracer Experiment (BTEX)

The paper describes the observational and modeling efforts performed under the Bolzano Tracer Experiment (BTEX). BTEX focused on the basin surrounding the city of Bolzano, at the junction of three tributary valleys on the southern side of the Alps, to characterize the ground-level impact of pollutants emitted by a waste incinerator close to the city, and atmospheric factors controlling dispersion processes in the whole basin, under different winter weather situations. As part of the experiment, two controlled releases of a passive gas tracer (sulfur hexafluoride, SF₆) were performed through the stack of the incinerator on 14 February 2017 at two different times, starting respectively at 0700 and 1245 LST, representative of distinct phases of the daily cycle. Samples of ambient air were collected at target sites, and later analyzed using a mass spectrometer, allowing a detectability limit down to 30 ppt. Meanwhile, meteorological conditions were continuously monitored by means of a high-resolution, nonconventional network of ground-based instruments, including 15 weather stations, one temperature profiler, one sodar, and one Doppler wind lidar. Data from the above measurements represent one of the rare examples of integrated datasets available to the community for the characterization of dispersion processes in a typical mountainous environment. In particular, they offered a reference benchmark for testing and calibrating a series of combined numerical modeling suites for weather prediction and pollutant dispersion simulation in such a complex terrain, as shown in the paper.