HQ

Two scientists from Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and one scientist from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) visited ARL Headquarters this week to provide an update on the progress made and discuss any remaining issues integrating the MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System (MACCS, http://maccs.sandia.gov/maccs.aspx), developed at Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, with the HYSPLIT model.  MACCS is a fully integrated, engineering-level computer code developed to analyze the off-site consequences of an accidental atmospheric release of radioactive material.  SNL is tasked with incorporating the HYSPLIT dispersion model into the MACCS software to improve the dispersion calculations which currently uses a simplistic Gaussian plume model.   This collaboration is part of the HYSPLIT support ARL provides to the NRC under a recently approved MOU between ARL and the NRC. Glenn Rolph, glenn.rolph@noaa.gov

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the Ozone Water Land Environmental Transition Study (OWLETS) science team held the OWLETS Science Team and Planning Meeting in Baltimore from October 17-19.  NASA sponsored the OWLETS campaign in July 2017 over the Chesapeake Bay near Hampton, VA. The MDE is interested in sponsoring a sequel campaign (OWLETS-2) over the Baltimore region in summer 2018. Chris Loughner,  Xinrong Ren, Barry Baker and Pius Lee were invited to participate to explore possibility of ARL joining this campaign. They gave three talks: Chris’ talk entitled: Air quality modeling, bay breeze, nitrogen depostition, Barry and Pius’ talk entitled: Operational forecasting from NOAA ARL, and Xinrong’s talk was entitled: Airborne air quality and greenhouse gas measurements. They discussed possible collaboration on both modeling and measurements.

FRD

Bai Yang started work as an ERT employee at FRD on Monday. He was previously working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a position supporting the AmeriFlux network and therefore has a strong background in air-surface exchange. At FRD he will be supporting both the dispersion research and related work on boundary-layer structure and evolution.

The division has started discussions with Kanok Boriboonsomsin and Akula Venkatram at the University of California Riverside on responding to a recent request for proposals coming from the Transportation Research Board. The request involves an assessment of dispersion models for transportation sector applications and mentions the possibility of including new tracer experiments in submitted proposals. FRD previously participated in related transportation research through the EPA-supported roadway sound barrier study in 2008.