Modeling Plumes of Hazardous Material

NWP

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The mesoscale and urban-scale meteorological modeling activities provide essential input data for multi-scale capabilities that track the movement of plumes of hazardous chemical, biological or radiological material. Numerous Department of Defense and civilian (e.g., EPA) plume models are employed, depending on the need, where the models have been verified using urban field-program data. There are quickly executing plume models, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory's QUIC-Plume model, that are designed for operational emergency-management applications, and there are more complex models that are used for research, for verifying the fast models, and for source-receptor studies.

One aspect of this work area is the development of methods for characterizing the source of a plume (size, time of release, location, etc.) based on downstream measurements, thus allowing for intervention if material continues to be released. Recent work involves the coupled modeling of both the indoor and outdoor movement of hazardous-material, including building infiltration and exfiltration.

Note: full phone: 303 - 497 - XXXX | email addresses end in "@ucar.edu"

Primary Contacts

  • SWERDLIN, Scott | NSAP DIRECTOR | ph: 8378 | email: swerdlin
  • BETANCOURT, Terri: | NSAP DEPUTY DIRECTOR | ph: 8489 | email: terrib
  • WARNER, Tom | NSAP DEPUTY DIRECTOR | ph: 8411 | email: warner