2021 ARL News
Atmospheric Mercury Monitoring Installation Completed at Barrow Observatory
The inlet of the mercury monitoring system is visible on the left-hand railing of the roof platform at the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory.
October 18, 2021
Short daylight hours greeted Paul Kelley and Winston Luke of NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory as they traveled to Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow) in Alaska. Their visit to install a Tekran® mercury speciation system at NOAA’s Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory was overdue, having been previously postponed by COVID travel restrictions. NOAA’s baseline observatories are administered by the Earth System Research Laboratories’ (ESRL) Global Monitoring Laboratory in Boulder, CO and are located in remote regions of the globe to measure the chemical composition of the background atmosphere.
2020’s Economic Slowdown Provides Opportunity to Investigate Ozone Pollution in the U.S.
Normally traffic clogged at rush hour, First Avenue in New York is empty due to lockdown restrictions on March 27, 2020. Image Credit: edenpictures
September 16, 2021
When COVID-19 pandemic began in the US, counties and cities across the nation imposed stay at home orders, closed schools or imposed travel restrictions. From March 2020 onward, many Americans hung up car keys and settled into their homes for work and school. Traffic patterns dramatically changed, and previously smog filled vistas became clearer.
HYSPLIT Migrates to the Cloud
July 26, 2021
HYSPLIT was successfully moved to a cloud based hosting platform run by NOAA’s Web Operations Center at 10:16am on July 15, 2021, once testing was complete. This migration enables the NWS to have HYSPLIT access on an operational platform for 24/7/365 hosting and maintenance by reducing the probability of equipment failures.
NOAA Upgrades Key Air Quality Prediction Model
July 21, 2021
Air quality forecasts not only offer longer term guidance – 72 hours – but also improve ozone forecasting
NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) has delivered significant updates to the Air Quality Model that NOAA’s National Weather Service uses to deliver air quality forecast guidance. NOAA’s partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues daily air quality forecast guidance as part of a National Air Quality Forecasting Capability. These forecasts include information such as the levels of ozone (O3), smoke, dust and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the air we breathe.
Which Way Does the Wind Blow?
July 21, 2021
With all due respect to Bob Dylan, atmospheric transport forecasting can be difficult. When ARL intern Todd McKinney sat down to analyze his University’s super high pressure balloon satellite, K4UAH-6, as it was about to make a pass over Greenland, the high pressure cells gave a wide range of results.
Chemtool Plant Fire Response Informed by HYSPLIT
June 21, 2021
A massive chemical fire started on Monday, June 12, 2021 at the Chemtool plant in Rockton, Illinois. The nature of the chemical fire and the presence of nearby waterways have made fire suppression a challenge, with emergency response lasting for days. Over 45 different fire departments have responded to the event so far, aided by NOAA WFO, the EPA and a variety of Illinois state agencies and the National Guard. Smoke plumes were so large that they were visible from GOES 15, as well as on weather radars.
US Drought Portal Includes USCRN Data
June 17, 2021
Soil moisture data from the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory’s (ARL) US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) is now publicly available through the redesigned U.S. Drought Portal. The portal, Drought.gov, which is hosted by NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), was re-launched under a revised National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network. The new network was designed to integrate soil moisture data from sources across federal and state in-situ networks, such as USCRN; remote sensing data; and other modeling capabilities.
HYSPLIT Goes Aloft
June 15, 2021
Todd McKinney, a rising senior at the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), was a natural choice to intern at ARL this summer. Todd celebrated his first week by taking HYSPLIT on a selfie stick balloon ride to 30000 meters, the lower reach of the stratosphere.
Lightning Produces Molecules that Clean Greenhouse Gases from the Atmosphere
May 19, 2021
Lightning produces molecules that can “clean” the atmosphere, according to research published this month in Science (Brune et al., 2021) and authored by a number of NOAA research scientists. The research demonstrates not only that lightning produces hydroxyl (OH) and hydroperoxyl (HO2), but also produces amounts much greater than expected due to weaker, subvisible electrical discharges. Researchers knew that lightning creates ions and new molecules including OH and HO2, but the amounts observed in this experiment were up to 1000 times what researchers had previously observed in the troposphere.
ARL Scientists Profiled for Women’s History Month
March 31, 2021
NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research profiled two scientists at Air Resources Laboratory’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division in Oak Ridge, Tennessee were profiled by for Women’s History Month.
March 1, 2021
HYSPLIT Use in February for Emergency Management
Several NOAA Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) used the ARL developed HYSPLIT tool for a wide range of emergency management situations in February 2021.
February 16, 2021
Dr. LaToya Myles Appointed Director of ARL’s ATDD
LaToya Myles, Ph.D. is now the permanent Director of and Supervisory Scientist of the Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division (ATDD) of NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory.
January 21, 2021
2020 HYSPLIT Accomplishments and Notable Use Cases
The ARL developed HYSPLIT tool for atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling hosted over 2 million runs in 2020.
January 7, 2021
ARL Researchers Head to AMS Meeting
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) will host its 101st annual conference virtually from January 10-15, 2021. A number of ARL researchers contributed papers on topics ranging from climate observations to boundary layer and atmospheric chemistry and dispersion.
2020 ARL News
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- ARL Researchers Prepare for AGU Fall Meeting – December 2020
- HYSPLIT Usability Improvements Provide Additional Location Data – November 2020
- NOAA Awards Recognize ARL Research Efforts – October 2020
- Wildfire Smoke Emission Estimation through HYSPLIT-based Inverse Modeling with Satellite Data – October 2020
- OAR and NOAA NESDIS Team up to Trace Summer 2020 Wildfire Smoke through US – October 2020
- Routine Vertical Profiling Using Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Resumes – October 2020
- Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) Upgrade Released – September 2020
- Investigating COVID-19’s impacts on air quality – May 2020
- ARL develops HYSPLIT powered, web-based locust tracking app for the United Nations – May 2020
- Temple Lee Co-authors Paper Using Tree Rings to Evaluate Mercury Trends – April 2020
- Air Quality Forecasting Upgrade Set to Take Effect – April 2020
- ARL Releases MONET Version 2.2 and MONETIO Version 0.1 – March 2020
- Five ARL Scientists Author Paper Examining Mercury Trends – March 2020
- NOAA Highlights High-Profile Usage of ARL’s sUAS for Meteorological Forecasting – March 2020
- Christopher Loughner Authors Paper Quantifying Health, Economic Impacts of Air Pollution Emissions Controls – February 2020
- HYSPLIT Model Produces Record Setting 1.5 Million Simulations in 2019 – January 2020
- ATDD’s Nebila Lichiheb Set to Begin Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship – January 2020
2001-2019 ARL News Archive
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