User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox

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:

• A team of research and operational staff with expertise in atmospheric research, operational meteorology, numerical modeling, computer science, software engineering, geographical information systems, computer graphics and hazardous material (radiological, chemical, biological) properties and effects.
• An operations center with uninterruptible power, backup power generators, robust computer systems and a staff on-duty or on-call 24 hours per day and 7 days a week.
• Scientific and technical staff who provide support and training for NARAC tools, as well as quality assurance and detailed analysis of atmospheric releases.
• Links to over 100 emergency operations centers around the United States.

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. The meteorological data assimilation model, ADAPT, constructs fields of such variables as the mean winds, pressure, precipitation, temperature, and turbulence. 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. 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.

See also

• Accidental release source terms
• Air Resources Laboratory
• Air Quality Modeling Group
• Atmospheric dispersion modeling
• Department of Public Safety
• National Center for Atmospheric Research
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

External links and sources

• National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (official website)
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (official website)