On January 30-31 Ariel Stein and Xinrong Ren participated in the Urban Greenhouse Gas Testbed Workshop at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. Participants in the workshop included representatives from different federal agencies and universities as well as several international organizations and institutions, all of whom are involved in some way with the urban greenhouse gas research and mitigation. The scientific and technical success and barriers, impacts and gaps were discussed. Experiences on domestic U.S. and international stakeholders and broader impacts of urban greenhouse research were shared. Two projects, the Northeast Corridor Testbed project with its current focus on the Baltimore-Washington area and the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Urban Synthesis and Analysis (CO2-USA) project, that ARL scientists are involved in were highlighted at the workshop. The importance and contribution of HYSPLIT to quantify and mitigate the urban greenhouse emissions were acknowledged. The workshop ended with sharing thoughts on future activities to fill technical gaps and gaps for delivery of capabilities.

On February 6th, senior Federal scientists from across ARL will meet at ATDD in Oak Ridge, TN, at an inaugural ARL Scientific Steering Committee. The intent of this Committee is to discuss the primary scientific directions and interactions among the different research activities that take place across ARL to ensure that key functions in ARL benefit from more scientific collaboration across the lab’s four divisions. In addition to Ariel Stein, who will be chairing the meeting, the initial attendees from ASMD will be Howard Diamond and Mark Cohen; from ATDD, Bruce Baker, LaToya Myles, Tilden Meyers, Rick Saylor, and John Kochendorfer; and representing both SORD and FRD, Walt Schalk.