ARL Weekly News – August 12, 2024
| Upcoming Events |
ARL and CSL begin work to plan 2025 AiRMAPS campaign by hosting workshop
Xinrong Ren from OAR/ARL and Steve Brown from OAR/CSL are convening and will be hosting an Airborne and Remote sensing Methane and Air Pollutant Surveys (AiRMAPS) 2025 Planning Workshop at the University of Maryland ESSIC in College Park, MD from September 3-4 (https://csl.noaa.gov/events/airmaps2025/baqmms-workshop/). OAR and NESDIS will be jointly conducting the Baltimore Air Quality and Marcellus Methane Survey (BAQMMS) field study in summer 2025 as part of AiRMAPS, in collaboration with other federal agencies such as NASA, DOE, NIST and EPA, state agencies including Maryland Department of Environment, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), as well as academic institute such as University of Maryland, Harvard University, Penn State University, Johns Hopkins University and Howard University. This workshop will bring together scientists as well as the leadership from these agencies and institutes in order to discuss opportunities for collaboration and coordination for better use of various research resources from several field projects that have been planned for the summer of 2025 in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area.
| Recent Events |
ARL Director appointed to serve on the National Volcano Early Warning System Advisory Committee
Dr. Ariel Stein was appointed for a two-year term to serve on the National Volcano Early Warning System Advisory Committee (NVEWSAC). As part of this committee, he will help the Secretary of the Interior with the implementation of the National Volcano Early Warning and Monitoring System and work with subject matter experts at ARL and other organizations to gather data for NVEWSAC decisions and recommendations.
HYSPLIT helps Texas Department of Emergency Management
The Weather Forecasting Office in Austin/San Antonio provided a HYSPLIT run to the Texas Department of Emergency Management due to a fire at a railcar dismantling factory in Gonzales County, Texas on Thursday evening, August 15.
Special Operations and Research Division receives Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director’s Science and Technology award
The Special Operations and Research Division received the award for the Low Yield Nuclear Monitoring Physics Experiment One A Design and Execution effort at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This award acknowledges, celebrates, and rewards significant accomplishments that have had a significant impact on the Laboratory by advancing scientific knowledge relevant to a core competency/mission or a significant breakthrough recognized both within the Laboratory and externally.
Special Operations and Research Division receives kudos from Department of Energy Idaho Deputy Manager
Mike McAnulty, Deputy Manager for Nuclear Energy Operations and Security at the Department of Energy Idaho sent the following kudos to DOE HQ and shared this with ARL:
“Tuesday afternoon we had a severe storm roll through parts of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Our experts at NOAA Air Resources Laboratory identified a hook echo in the radar indicating rotation in the storm. They put out alerts to the site, warning them of potential funnel clouds, large hail, heavy rain, and lightning. Matt Brewer (NOAA/ARL) contacted the site areas to warn them of what was coming, so they were able to take appropriate protective actions before the storm passed over them. We had ground reports of quarter-size hail and NOAA predicted hail as large as 2.5 inches. About the same time the storm hit the Naval Reactor Facility, the National Weather Service put out a Tornado Warning.
Based on the size of the INL, the weather can be vastly different between the site areas. Our agreement with NOAA gives us a more refined and timelier forecast which is superior to the broad, regional forecast provided by the National Weather Service. This is an example of one of the many benefits we get with our NOAA interagency agreement.”
He further thanked ARL for communicating this weather event with the site and sent this image of the weather that day.
| Publications |
Accepted for publication
“Mobile Laboratory Measurements of Air Pollutants in Baltimore, MD Elucidate Issues of Environmental Justice” was accepted for publication in The Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association.
Russell R. Dickerson, Phillip Stratton, Xinrong Ren, Paul Kelley, Christopher Heaney, Lauren Deanes, Matthew Aubourg, Kristoffer Spicer, Joel Dreesen, Ryan Auvil, Gregory Sawtell, Meleny Thomas, Shashawnda Campbell, Carlos Sanchez.