ARL Weekly News – December 15, 2017

HQ​

This week the WRF/ARW meteorological model was successfully configured to be able to run through a web interface for any location selected by the user and create a HYSPLIT-compatible meteorological file. Currently, the system is designed to create 2 domains: a CONUS domain at 27 km with 6 hrs of spin up and 9 hours of forecast, and a user-define domain at 9 km with 6 hrs of spin up and 9 hours of forecast. For boundary conditions, WRF uses the AWRF archive (27 km) for 1980 to the end of the 2016 and the NARR data from the Research Data Archive at NCAR/UCAR for the current year (the NARR data is only updated once per month). The next steps are to initialize WRF with current Global Forecast System data to allow WRF forecasts in real time and to create scripts to allow registered users to run HYSPLIT using the WRF high resolution meteorological data through the READY website. Glenn Rolph and Fantine Ngan​.

Daniel Tong attended the AGU 2017 Fall Meeting from December 11-15 in New Orleans, LA and presented ARL work “Global marine isoprene emissions observed from SNPP-VIIRS” in the NOAA Joint Polar-orbiting Satellite System(JPSS) special session.

ATDD

Bruce Baker had an oral presentation on Evaluation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for Weather and Climate using the Multi-testbed approach in an AGU session on Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems in Atmospheric Science.

Bruce Baker and Howard Diamond presented a poster entitled Climate Observing Systems: “Where are we and where do we need to be in the future in an AGU session on Planning the Climate Observing System of the Future.”

Praveena presented a poster on the Variability of soil CO2 efflux in a semi-arid grassland in Arizona in the Past, Present, and Future of Dryland Ecosystems: Local Trends to Global Impacts II session.

At the AGU Fall Meeting last week, LaToya Myles gave a presentation at the NOAA booth on atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen. She was also co-author on two posters: Investigating the processes of ammonia exchange between the atmosphere and a corn canopy following urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) fertilization with urease inhibitor NBPT presented by Nebila Lichiheb (ATDD NRC postdoctoral researcher) and Inter-comparison of flux-gradient and relaxed eddy accumulation for measuring NH3 flux above a corn canopy in central Illinois, USA presented by Andy Nelson (UIUC doctoral candidate). Finally, she was an invited panelist for a live webcast session on “Creating inclusive and diverse field and lab environments within the geosciences” and an invited discussion leader for a workshop on “Strategies for attracting and advancing a diverse geoscience workforce.”​

FRD

FRD has been testing new dataloggers and radios at six of the NOAA/INL Mesonet stations in preparation for future upgrades. The newer Campbell Scientific CR6 datalogger is being used at these stations as a replacement for the discontinued CR23X. Cal/Amp Viper SC+ ethernet radios are being evaluated as a replacement for the existing Campbell radios, which use a proprietary communications protocol rather than ethernet/IP. So far, the new equipment has been working without incident, including recent periods with persistent temperature inversions, rime ice, and fog. The new radios provide significantly higher communication speeds but with the trade-off that they consume more power.

SORD

James Wood and Walt Schalk completed the calibration/verification on the last station for this 6 month period. The next round will begin in the Spring.

Rick Lantrip, James Wood, and Walt Schalk participated in a meeting with Nevada Field Office contractor’s Emergency Management representatives to discuss activities from the last exercise. The primary topic of discussion was the support the Consequence Assessment Team provides to the Field Monitoring Group and how to improve the interaction between the two groups during exercises and the real world. In addition, discussions with the NARAC (National Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability) were conducted to work on improving our response modelling.

Walt Schalk met with Nevada Field Office contractor personnel to discuss the Nevada National Security Site’s (NNSS) effort to complete the Vulnerability Screening activity for the mandated Site Sustainability Project – Climate Resiliency.