Plume

From Glossary of Meteorology



plume

  1. Buoyant jet in which the buoyancy is supplied from a point source; the buoyant region is continuous.


    See thermal.

  2. A mostly horizontal (sometimes initially vertical) stream of air pollutant that is being blown downwind from a smokestack.

    Typical smoke-plume diameters are of order 1–10 m initially, gradually expanding to 100 m or more, while lengths can be order of 1–100 km. The path and shape of the smoke plume can indicate the nature of turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer, such as looping plumes, fanning plumes, and coning plumes.

    Emanuel, K. A. 1994. Atmospheric Convection. Oxford University Press, . p. 16.


Copyright 2024 American Meteorological Society (AMS). For permission to reuse any portion of this work, please contact permissions@ametsoc.org. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 U.S. Code § 107) or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S.Copyright Act (17 USC § 108) does not require AMS’s permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a website or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, require written permission or a license from AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy statement.