User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox: Difference between revisions

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* [http://narac.llnl.gov National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center] (official website)
* [http://narac.llnl.gov National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center] (official website)
* [http://www.llnl.gov Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory] (official website)
* [http://www.llnl.gov Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory] (official website)
* [https://www.llnl.gov/str/March07/Sugiyama.html On the Leading Edge of Atmospheric Predictions]
* [http://www.directives.doe.gov/pdfs/doe/doetext/neword/153/o1531.pdf DOE Radiological Emergency Response Assets]
* [http://www.directives.doe.gov/pdfs/doe/doetext/neword/153/o1531.pdf DOE Radiological Emergency Response Assets]

Revision as of 20:06, 8 November 2008

The National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) is a national support and resource center for planning, real-time assessment, emergency response, and detailed studies of incidents involving a wide variety of hazards, including nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, and natural emissions.

NARAC's primary functions

NARAC's primary function is to support U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) sites, and DOE consequence management (CM) teams for radiological releases through the DOE's Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) program. Under the auspices of the National Response Plan, NARAC assists other federal agencies and, through them, state and local agencies.

NARAC's support and advisory responsibilities are implemented by:

  • Providing tools and services that map the probable spread of hazardous material accidentally or intentionally released into the atmosphere.
  • Providing atmospheric plume predictions in time for an emergency manager to decide if action is necessary to protect the health and safety of people in affected areas.

Location and operational facilities

Narac is located at the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The operational facilities operated by NARAC include:

The Emergency Response System: Real time dispersion modeling

The NARAC emergency response central modeling system consists of an integrated suite of meteorological and atmospheric dispersion models.[1][2] The meteorological data assimilation model, ADAPT, constructs fields of such variables as the mean winds, pressure, precipitation, temperature, and turbulence.[3] Non-divergent wind fields are produced by a procedure based on the variational principle and a finite-element discretization. The dispersion model, LODI, solves the 3-D advection-diffusion equation using a Lagrangian stochastic, Monte Carlo method.[4] LODI includes methods for simulating the processes of mean wind advection, turbulent diffusion, radioactive decay and production, bio-agent degradation, first-order chemical reactions, wet deposition, gravitational settling, dry deposition, and buoyant/momentum plume rise.

The models are coupled to NARAC databases providing topography, geographical data, chemical-biological-nuclear agent properties and health risk levels, real-time meteorological observational data, and global and mesoscale forecast model predictions. The NARAC modeling system also includes an in-house version of the Naval Research Laboratory's mesoscale weather forecast model COAMPS.[5]

References

  1. Turner, D.B. (1994). Workbook of atmospheric dispersion estimates: an introduction to dispersion modeling, 2nd Edition. CRC Press. ISBN 1-56670-023-X.  www.crcpress.com
  2. Beychok, M.R. (2005). Fundamentals Of Stack Gas Dispersion, 4th Edition. author-published. ISBN 0-9644588-0-2.  www.air-dispersion.com
  3. Sugiyama, G., and S. T. Chan (1998), A New Meteorological Data Assimilation Model for Real-Time Emergency Response, 10th Joint Conference on the Applications of Air Pollution Meteorology, Phoenix, Arizona, January, 1998.
  4. Ermak, D.L., and J.S. Nasstrom (2000), A Lagrangian Stochastic Diffusion Method for Inhomogeneous Turbulence, Atmospheric Environment, 34, 7, 1059-1068.
  5. Hodur, R. M. (1997), The Navel Research Laboratory's Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS), Mon. Wea. Rev., 125, 1414-1430.

See also

External links and sources