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The Air Resources Laboratory traces it's origins
back to 1948, as the Special Projects Section (SPS)
of the U.S. Weather Bureau. SPS was set up to serve
as an interface between the research needs of other
agencies and the meteorological products provided
by the Weather Bureau. It's existence was later underpinned
by a formal directive (OMB-62) that charged the Weather
Bureau with providing meteorological services to
all agencies who desired them. ARL continues in this
mold, operating in accordance with the NOAA
Strategic Plan, while providing the meteorological
expertise required by other agencies as they conduct
research related to both their own and NOAA's missions. |
In the 1940s, as the nuclear age was emerging, it became
clear that we were no longer faced with simple environmental
problems with simple remedies. It was eminently apparent
that radioactive fallout was an exceedingly complex issue,
involving extremely long range transport through the air
and affecting all aspects of the environment. The nature
of the concerns generated a view that the problem was not
only atmospheric, but also related to the way in which
the atmosphere interacted with other parts of the environment.
In this sense, it was not only the atmospheric resource
that was endangered, but also other components of the environment
with which the atmosphere interacts. The Air Resources
Laboratory grew out of such considerations, soon leaving
its radioactive fallout origins behind and focusing on
all situations in which mankind and society influence the
quality of the atmosphere and the nature of its interaction
with other components of the environment.
Today, the Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) operates as
one of twelve research institutions of the Office
of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research of NOAA,
with a mission that has remained largely unchanged throughout
its lifetime -- to learn how to predict air quality, and
to institutionalize these skills for assessment, policy
development, public and environmental protection, and emergency
response purposes. It is the ARL charter to monitor the
quality of the atmosphere, to assess its interaction with
other parts of the environment, and to learn how to predict
future changes. In this regard, ARL stands on three legs
-- monitoring, research, and assessment.
It is the continuing ARL philosophy that these three activities
must progress in parallel, as closely coupled as is possible.
ARL monitoring activities emphasize the concept of INTEGRATION
between research and monitoring, with a focus on learning
how to extend data records into the future. The results
are intended to help guide sound environmental policy,
reducing the risk of making costly regulatory errors. The
assessments that ARL promotes integrate across media and
disciplines; we are at the intersection between the atmospheric
environment and other parts of the global ecosystem. We
view the atmosphere as a part of the total environment
that mankind is putting at risk, and we seek the knowledge
to safeguard this resource.
Almost all of the major accomplishments of
ARL have been published in
the open literature, in conference or symposia proceedings,
as technical memoranda and technical reports, or occasionally
as “in-house” reports.
Early History
In 1948, the Weather Bureau formed a Special Projects
Section (SPS) to engage in research utilizing meteorology
to assist the emerging atomic energy program. During the
early stages of the Cold War, many of these developments
were involved in weapons testing.
Dr. Lester Machta accepted
the directorship of the unit in 1948 and was joined by
four other meteorologists. At that time, funding for the
Special Projects Section was entirely from the Department
of Defense and (a little later) from the Atomic Energy
Commission, the predecessor of the Department
of Energy. For a protracted period, outside financial
support was the exclusive or overwhelmingly dominant source
of funds. This status was and still is often criticized
because “soft money” is viewed as being less
dependable than internal base funding. However, these outside
funds have proved to be very stable until quite recently,
when they have shared the same uncertainties as have influenced
NOAA's budget. In time, the initial ARL inter-agency role
began to be questioned within ESSA (NOAA's predecessor).
Recently, there has been some welcome return to the early
recognition of the importance of the ARL role as an interface
between NOAA and other federal science users. There is
special recognition in other agencies of the relevance
of NOAA science and products related to the quality of
the atmosphere, the transport and dispersion of pollutants
in it, and their deposition from it. The contemporary awareness
of the need to consider all aspects of our environment
in order to protect against unforseen repercussions of
regulatory actions feeds directly into the ARL view of
the atmosphere as a resource that is intimately coupled
with the other media, both living and otherwise.
One noteworthy contribution of the SPS was the publication
of Meteorology and Atomic Energy(1960). This handbook
summarized the state of the science related to PBL processes
and air pollution meteorology, including plume rise, turbulence
and dispersion, and atmospheric stability. With contributions
from SPS scientists and other experts, this book remained
a primary source of practical and theoretical information
for more than two decades, until supplanted by later revisions
that were also prepared with substantial ARL input.
The Special Projects Section, and it's successor, ARL,
were among the first organizations to use meteorology to
interpret air quality measurements and to contribute to
assessment of hazards from the release of radionuclides
and other pollutants to the atmosphere. This activity,
now conducted in a far more sophisticated fashion, continues
as ARL's chief function. Partially as the result of the
success and reputation of the Special Projects Section
and other Weather Bureau research activities for other
agencies of the Federal Government, the predecessor to
the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a directive to
agencies other than the Department of Defense (which even
then had its own military weather service) to refrain from
creating separate meteorological units independent of those
of the Weather Bureau. (1)
In its early years, the Headquarters unit was located
at 24th and M Streets, N.W., Washington, DC. The Special
Projects Section and its successor, the Headquarters component
of the Air Resources Laboratory, remained at the same address
except for a short period when it was temporarily located
at Connecticut and Rhode Island Avenues in the District
of Columbia. The transfer to Silver Spring, the Gramax
Building on East West Highway and Georgia Avenue (actually
8060 13th Street, Silver Spring), took place in the late
1970's. During 1983-1984, the unit was housed in Rockville,
but it returned to the Gramax Building until early 1990
when ARL Headquarters moved to a nearby Silver Spring location
at 1325 East West Highway, adjacent to the Metro Station.
In 1992, the unit moved again, from 1325 to the adjacent
building at 1315 East West Highway.
Within a decade after the Special Projects unit was formed
in 1948, it expanded substantially to support the AEC and
the US
Public Health Service. However, all of the professional
staff were meteorologists -- the era of air chemistry emphasis
arrived later. There were, however, plenty of problems
dealing with radioactivity and air pollution involving
transport and deposition to keep the research staff very
busy. In general the ARL role was (and continues to be)
to determine the scientific basis for the atmospheric problems
that are encountered. In this sense, ARL provides the scientific
basis for policy decisions that are often made in other
agencies.
On some occasions, policy decisions were made against
ARL scientific advice. As an example, the use of tall stacks
to solve local pollution problems was against the strong
advice of senior ARL staff. The ARL contention was that
the pollution would simply be moved farther downwind -
a realization that proved correct. The long-range transport
of pollution that was exacerbated by the tall stack approach
subsequently plagued rural areas far downwind of industrial
complexes. The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program
(NAPAP) was largely created to address the issue of long
range transport of sulfur and nitrogen emissions from power
plant stacks. ARL played a leading role in NAPAP, representing
NOAA in discussion of policy matters as well as leading
several scientific subcommittees.
Likewise, ARL scientists joined in early efforts to ensure
that controls intended to reduce ozone pollution did not
have the opposite consequences. It was recognized by ARL
and EPA scientists
that controlling emissions of volatile organic compounds
without addressing nitrogen oxides, or vice versa, would
not universally reduce ozone production. (Both VOCs and
nitrogen oxides are precursors of ozone in surface air.)
Unfortunately, it was politically expedient at that time
to proceed with controls on VOCs alone, a step that indeed
gave rise to a rural ozone problem and which generated
a substantial scientific backlash in later years. The lessons
learned in these early conflicts between scientific guidance
and regulatory feasibility led to the current ARL view
that regulations and pollution policies should be broad-based,
not the simple one-chemical-at-a-time approach of the past.
Within NOAA and within the Department of Commerce this
philosophy resonates with the call for a regulatory strategy
with no surprises. The ARL contribution is to provide the
best possible scientific guidance concerning the behavior
of the atmosphere and how it interacts with other media.
Most interaction between ARL scientists and other agencies
remains at the research level. ARL scientists provide meteorological
research guidance and support as needed by other agencies
to perform their own functions. Through it's position at
the intersection of NOAA and other agencies, ARL can inject
NOAA policy into decision-making processes that would otherwise
not consider NOAA interests. This positioning of NOAA scientists
at the center of other-agency research activities also
provides an opportunity for NOAA policy to be anticipatory
more than reactionary on environmental matters.
During the 1970's, the atmospheric science community was
increasingly interested in climate change, specifically
the possibility of global cooling due to increasing atmospheric
aerosol loading related to air pollution. In addition,
the possibility of global stratospheric ozone depletion
by emissions from a planned fleet of supersonic aircraft
was worrying the environmental community. ARL scientists
began to monitor stratospheric ozone levels using data
from a global network of ground-based sensors. This work,
initiated as a collaborative effort involving ARL scientists
in Silver Spring, MD and in Boulder,
CO, was responsible for a large part of the global
ozone network. It provided the first estimates of global
ozone variations, including the effects of volcanos and
stratospheric temperature on ozone. The study of time trends
in ozone and other stratospheric and upper tropospheric
quantities (specifically temperature and humidity) has
continued; it is a main source of information about secular
trends available to the international scientific community.
As a consequence of the OMB directive, the Air Pollution
Unit of the Public Health Service (PHS; this later became
the EPA) requested the Weather Bureau to provide it with
meteorological expertise. A special Weather Bureau air
pollution unit was formed in 1955 and assigned to the Special
Projects Section. This field operation was physically located
in Cincinnati, Ohio, until 1969, when it moved to Raleigh,
North Carolina. The unit was organizationally integrated
with the Public Health Service, the only such arrangement
within ARL. Under this arrangement, which continues today,
the NOAA/ARL Division Director and Branch Chiefs are regarded
as holding similar positions in the EPA
National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL). Currently
NOAA ARL meteorologists and supporting staff are assigned
under an EPA/NOAA interagency agreement.
As part of the establishment of the North Carolina facility,
scientists designed and built the Fluid Modeling Facility
(FMF), originally consisting of large and small wind tunnels,
and a water channel/towing tank. In recent years, FMF obtained
the widely-known Willis/Deardorff convection tank from
the University of Oregon, and rebuilt it to include differential
surface heating and an automated laser optical measurement
device. Measurement data obtained with this equipment are
used to develop and evaluate models for various types of
pollutant dispersion around natural and manmade obstacles.
The NOAA/ARL group in
Research Triangle Park works closely with the EPA
Office of Research and Development, the EPA
Office of Air and Radiation, the EPA Regional Offices,
and state and local agencies to provide user-appropriate
and scientifically credible air quality meteorological programs
to support regulatory applications. This meteorological support
primarily involves development and evaluation of air quality
dispersion models for pollution abatement, direct and indirect
exposure assessments and, control strategy formulation.
In light of the 1990
Amendments to the Clean Air Act, air quality models
and the manner in which they are used are expected to
evolve considerably over the next few years. In the area
of pollutant deposition, the understanding of nitrogen,
oxidant, and sulfur chemistry will help clarify the roles
of cloud processes, radiative transfer, and air/surface
vertical exchange in air quality model predictions. This
will allow evaluation of inter-pollutant effects resulting
from the variety of control programs that are now or
will be in place.
Airborne inhalable particles are a growing concern at
this time. To address this issue, dispersion models are
being enhanced to predict aerosol growth from precursors
over regional and local transport distances. To evaluate
the contribution of various sources to regional air degradation,
inert tracer and tagged species numerical models are being
developed.
Oxidants and ozone are among other contemporary issues
that ASMD modeling is addressing. The roles of volatile
organic compounds (man-made and otherwise), rural nitrogen
oxides, and vertical transport are being elucidated. A
better understanding is being developed of the ozone nonattainment
problem. Much of this research is part of the North
American Research Strategy on Tropospheric Ozone (NARSTO) program,
in which NOAA plays a leading role.
Research in human exposure modeling includes microenvironmental
monitoring and modeling, and development of exposure assessment
tools. Microenvironmental algorithms are being developed
based on field data to predict air quality in buildings,
attached garages, and street canyons. Modeling research
is also being conducted to define the atmospheric presence
of endocrine disruptors.
In addition to these major areas, dispersion models for
inert, reactive and toxic pollutants are under development
and evaluation on all temporal and spatial scales, e.g.,
indoor, urban, complex terrain, mesoscale, and regional.
Efforts include construction and application of air pollution
climatologies; modeling of agricultural pesticide spray
drift and of fugitive particles from surface coal mines;
and modeling of trace metal deposition to the Great
Lakes, nutrient deposition to Chesapeake Bay, and mercury
deposition to the Florida Everglades.
NOAA ARL participation in the EPA
component of the interagency High Performance Computing
and Communications (HPCC) Program is enabling increased
efficiency in air quality modeling through research on
parallel implementation, with the subsequent transfer
of these achieved efficiencies to the user community.
The HPCC Program is also developing a flexible environmental
modeling and decision support tool (Models-3) to deal
with multiple scales (urban to regional) and multiple
pollutants simultaneously, thus facilitating a more comprehensive
and cost effective approach to related single-stressor
and multi-stressor human and ecosystem problems. Models-3
provides a framework to support the constant evolution
of environmental models to handle more complex issues
such as fine particulate, visibility, toxic pollutant,
and multi-media (air and water) environmental assessments.
There have been six directors of the group that is now
known as the ARL Atmospheric Sciences Modeling Division
-- Ray Wanta, Bob McCormick, Larry Niemeyer, Ken Demerjian,
Frank Schiermeier, and currently Dr. S.T. Rao. The strong
technical capabilities of these managers have generated
a relatively high level of NOAA credibility in the air
pollution community in an arena in which adverse criticism
is stimulated by large dollar stakes and, in more recent
years, by intense competition and criticism (of EPA regulatory
policy) both inside and outside the Federal Government.
The NOAA ARL role as a provider of meteorological scientific
guidance inside the EPA regulatory structure is one that
could serve as an example of the ways in which different
government agencies have learned to work together to mutual
benefit, in precisely the way that is currently being advocated
at the highest levels of government.
In 1948, a U.S. Weather Bureau (USWB) Research Station
was set up at Oak Ridge, where the Manhattan
Project had been located through the later years of
the Second World War. For the first two decades of its
existence, most of this group's funding was provided by
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NOAA, or their
respective predecessors. However, beginning in the early
1970s agency budget constraints and increasing demands
by other agencies for access to NOAA resources and skills
resulted in the development of a broader base of funding
through a number of interagency and interlaboratory agreements.
In recent years, support for joint research activities
has been provided by many federal and state agencies, ranging
from the Department of Defense to the Federal
Highway Administration (FHWA). In all cases, the work
performed is collaborative. All other-agency work represents
a contribution to NOAA research goals (in this case, towards
the accomplishment of the ARL mission to develop methods
to predict air quality) as well as an example of exercising
NOAA skills and specialties to support other agencies.
Dr. Frank Gifford was appointed Director of the Weather
Bureau office in Oak Ridge in 1955. At that time, the focus
was to document and understand the dispersion characteristics
of the Oak Ridge area, in support of programs of the Atomic
Energy Commission related to the emerging nuclear industry
in the area. In 1964, a specialized laboratory was created
to study the processes of atmospheric diffusion -- the
Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Laboratory, ATDL.
This mission has changed little over the following decades,
however the name of the organization has changed. It is
now the Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division of
the Air Resources Laboratory -- ATDD.
The
laboratory was initially housed in the AEC Administration
Building. In 1964, it moved to Cheyenne Hall (a war-time
dormitory converted to office space). In 1970, it moved
yet again to the then-new Oak Ridge Federal Office Building.
Since 1972, the group has occupied a building located on
a 4.5 acre tract in central Oak Ridge. The building is
one of the oldest in the city -- recently identified as
a State Historic Site and awarded a prize by the City of
Oak Ridge for the way in which it has been preserved. The
main building, built in 1943 while construction was under
way for the Manhattan Project, was initially designed for
temporary use as a field hospital to handle emergencies
and minor injuries.
In
1974, the Energy Research and Development Administration
( ERDA, the successor to the AEC and a forerunner of the
Department of Energy -- DOE) entered into an agreement
with Oak
Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) on behalf of ATDL
whereby “computer, engineering, and library services” would
be provided by ORAU. This enabled permanent ORAU staff
assignments to the ATDL and opened the way for close collaboration
with ORAU in scientific, administrative, and technical
work.
Following Dr. Frank Gifford as Director was Bruce Hicks,
who took over in 1980. In 1990, Dr. Rayford P. Hosker Jr.
was appointed when Bruce Hicks assumed the ARL Directorship,
and is presently serving in this role.
Ecology, air pollution, oil embargoes, and the energy
shortage of the early 1970s aroused national interest in
regional-scale environmental impacts of energy generation
facilities. As the size of power plants and industrial
facilities grew, the potential atmospheric effects of waste
heat and moisture became of increasing concern. Although
ATDL had addressed these issues for some time, research
activities became more strongly oriented toward solving
the problems of a lack of suitable computer models and
adequate observations for testing the models.
Today's research activities at ATDD carry the memory of
the early years, with a continuing focus on turbulence
and its consequences on pollution dispersion, although
now directed mainly towards improving understanding of
behavior at night and in complex terrain. A recent major
initiative has been directed towards improving the ability
to describe air-surface exchange in numerical models. To
this end, new flux-measuring techniques have been developed,
and an aircraft program has evolved. The air-surface exchange
activity is now a central contributor to the national environmental
monitoring array, with it's AIRMoN-dry(2) component
forming the mechanism by which research results of ATDD
and other programs are rapidly transferred to derive dry
deposition rates from routine observations of air chemistry
and key meteorological and surface variables. In recent
years, new areas of study have grown from these general
interests, such as the chemistry and deposition of airborne
mercury and the effects of local terrain on concentrations
of ozone.
As a contribution to the International Geophysical Year
of 1958, a routine program to monitor atmospheric concentrations
of carbon dioxide was started. NOAA provided a small amount
of funding and an ARL meteorologist to support the program
initiated by Scripps Institute of Oceanography (Dr. Dave Keeling).
The Observatory
at Mauna Loa was established primarily to house the
C02 analyzers used in this program, although
a similar measurement program had been started the previous
year at the South
Pole observatory. The operation of Mauna Loa was assigned
to the Special Projects Section. It was soon recognized
that there was need for a network of such observatories
(a recognition that was shared by the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO)), but it was not
until considerably later that additional funding was assigned
to form what then became the Global Monitoring for Climate
Change Division of ARL. The importance of long-term global
monitoring was recognized and provided the basis for a
long-term commitment of ARL to the problem.
In
1990, the GMCC component was split from ARL to create a
new, self-standing laboratory -- the Climate
Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL). Before
the separation of GMCC from ARL, climate-related research
was distributed among the ARL divisions. The separation
of GMCC and the formation of CMDL had repercussions on
all ARL components, because the integral linkages that
had been forged within ARL were fundamentally interrupted.
A small ARL presence in Boulder remained following the
separation of CMDL, and was restructured to form
the Surface Radiation
Research Branch (SRRB), initially operating as a field
component of the Headquarters Division. SRRB headed the
national radiation monitoring activity. Two ARL programs
were involved -- the Integrated Surface Irradiation Study
(ISIS), which monitors incoming solar and ultraviolet radiation,
and the more extensive SURFRAD array
where outgoing radiation components are measured as well
as incoming.
Solar radiation has been a long-standing topic for ARL
study. Soon after the rise in oil prices in 1973 the Federal
Government decided to assess its data about renewable resources
including solar radiation and wind energy. ARL took on
the responsibility to revive the failing NOAA solar radiation
monitoring network and to try to correct past defective
data. No NOAA funds were involved; funding derived from
the National
Science Foundation and the Department of Energy after
the solar energy program was transferred out of the NSF.
The NOAA-DOE understanding was that after the DOE funded
a revival of the network, the continuation of network operation
would be a NOAA responsibility. However, the expected new
funding from Congress was not received by NOAA, and in
the absence of this support the network drifted towards
yet another period of decay and disarray. In 1993, ARL
accepted responsibility for refining and rebuilding the
nation's solar radiation monitoring network. The new array
is now in place and is operating well, although still suffering
from a lack of money. It should be emphasized that the
ARL interest in this activity is not strongly related to
climate issues, but more to the expectation that the next
generation of prognostic models will require radiation
data as input. First steps towards developing this new
generation of prognostic models are now being taken.
Ultraviolet radiation monitoring has been a part of the
ARL activity, for more than two decades. In the 1960s,
there was speculation that the stratospheric ozone layer
might be destroyed by emissions from high-flying supersonic
aircraft. NOAA accepted the role of measuring ultraviolet
(UV) radiation in the 290-315 nm range - the part of the
spectrum (UV-B) that might be affected by the loss of the
ozone layer and which is biologically important. A UV network
was established, using simple broad-band instruments that
proved too crude for the challenge they were given. Today,
a few of the original instruments are still operated, in
a conscious attempt to learn more about their behavior
and in an attempt to reveal meaningful information from
the historic record. Main emphasis today is on the use
of new broad-band sensors operated at ISIS stations.
The ARL group in Boulder has had three leaders -- Dr.
Joe Boatman, Dr. John DeLuisi, and Dr. Joseph Michalsky,
who joined ARL from SUNY Albany in early 2003. At first,
the focus of the group was aerosols. Under the leadership
of Dr. DeLuisi, the group gelled into a major player in
the international solar radiation community, with a special
emphasis on UV-B and surface radiation budget measurements.
On October 1, 2005, SRRB was merged into the
Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) as part of the
Global Monitoring Division.
The original purpose of the Special Projects Section (SPS)
(initially under Dr. Harry Wexler's Weather Bureau Research
Division) was to carry out sensitive, classified research
related to the United States nuclear weapons and atomic
energy programs, hence the uninformative name. The testing
of atomic weapons began on the Nevada
Test Site (NTS) (formerly the Nevada Proving Grounds)
in January 1951 with Operation
RANGER, a series of five independent tests. All meteorological
support for these tests was centered at Nellis Air Force
Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dr. George Cressman headed the
military forecasting team for Operation RANGER, and SPS
personnel provided meteorological oversight and expertise.
The SRS team recognized the uncertainties in forecasting
the fallout pattern and potential exposure rates and recommended
a research program be implemented by SPS. This effort began
in 1953.
In subsequent weapons tests, which were conducted in a
campaign style, SPS staff served as members of the AEC
Test Manager's Advisory Panel. This Panel always included
a representative of the national laboratory conducting
the test, an expert on radiation medicine, meteorology,
and public health. The Panel always met prior to each test
to assess weather and other safety issues.
In 1956 the AEC began plans to use the NTS more frequently
for the testing of atomic weapons and to test nuclear rocket
engines. At this time it became apparent that support to
these programs by military personnel was not consistent
with the policy of nuclear weapons stewardship being under
civilian management. These large projects, as well as potential
future activities, required significant meteorological
support and parallel research. These requirements were
not compatible with the military mission, would have required
a major commitment by the military which did not have the
necessary scientific or technical skill mix to support
these programs, nor was it DOD's desire to provide this
support. A logical alternative was the U.S. Weather Bureau.
The SPS group that had supported past test operations was
an obvious choice. The use of another federal agency was
viewed as cost effective and prudent. Moreover, considerable
advantage was perceived as accruing to the AEC, through
public perception and acceptability, of another department
of the Executive Branch of government furnishing impartial
and independent input to the assessments of potential impacts
on public safety and health, to national security, and
in some cases to international relations. Consequently,
in March 1956, the AEC signed a Memorandum of Understanding
with the U.S. Weather Bureau Research Station (WBRS) in
Las Vegas to provide full meteorological support to NTS
activities.
The first Director of the WBRS was Phil Allen who took
over in 1956, setting up office facilities, establishing
communications links, and procuring equipment. The first
office was located at 1229 South Main Street in downtown
Las Vegas. By the end of 1956 there were 12 personnel on
duty. Direct support to test operations began in early
1957. Research efforts at the WBRS focused on improving
the accuracy and reliability of the predictions of test-specific
weather conditions, fallout patterns, hot-lines, debris
cloud arrival times, and potential exposure rates. The
resuspension of radioactive debris was also of concern.
Operational experience demonstrated the essential requirement
for site-specific characterization of atmospheric conditions
just prior to each test. The better the definition of winds
aloft and atmospheric stability, the more reliable the
predictions of the transport, dispersion, and deposition
(fallout) of radioactive material. A major accomplishment
of the WBRS research staff was the development of a technique
for predicting the fallout pattern, hot-line, and potential
exposure rates. In addition, the techniques of optimizing,
collecting, analyzing, and displaying meteorological data
in real time were perfected as computer and communications
technology improved. WBRS, and presently ARL/SORD, management,
with AEC (and DOE) support, kept informed of advances in
technology and science within the U.S. Weather Bureau,
ERDA, and now NOAA, and transferred these improvements
to the customer. In 1962 the office moved to a location
at 2753 South Highland Dr. in Las Vegas. Then in (1999?)
the office moved into the new DOE Nevada Operations Office
at the Nevada Support Facility at 232 Energy Way.
With the formation of the Environmental Sciences and Services
Administration (ESSA) and the Environmental Research Laboratories
(ERL) in 1965, the WBRS became the Air Resources Laboratory
(ARL) Field Research Office (ARFRO). In 1967 the name was
modified to ARL-Las Vegas (ARL-LV). In 1976, the program
was transferred to the National
Weather Service (NWS) and became the Weather Service
Nuclear Support Office (WSNSO) with Hal Mueller as the
Meteorologist-in-Charge (MIC), followed by Bob Titus in
1985, and Mark Fair in 1989. Due to the changing needs
of the DOE at the NTS for more focus on research, emergency
response issues, solar energy, special military projects,
and sub-critical nuclear experiments, the WSNSO was transferred
back to ARL as the Special Operations and Research Division
(SORD), with Dr. Darryl Randerson as the Director.
Through its contribution to the weapons-related programs
in Las Vegas, the Department
of Commerce has had a long and positive relationship
with DOE, and its predecessors, for 40 years. During this
tenure, SORD has added significantly to our knowledge of
atmospheric processes over complex terrain, to techniques
for predicting the atmospheric transport, dispersion, and
deposition of radioactive materials, to information on
thunderstorm and precipitation processes in a desert environment,
to the development of mesoscale forecast techniques, and
to the organization of a unique emergency response capability.
Meteorological support to DOE/NV has included the transfer
of NOAA technology and science to DOE, meteorological monitoring,
specialized weather forecast services tailored to customer
needs, climatological analyses and summaries, emergency
response assistance, mission oriented research, and a mobile
remote-sensing capability. Moreover, SORD serves as the
hub of the NOAA/DOE meteorological communications network,
providing other DOE field offices with access to NOAA meteorological
data bases and forecast products. SORD is also part of
the NOAA Integrated Surface Irradiance Study project, designed
to measure and evaluate the solar radiant energy resource.
SORD meteorologists and technical personnel also support
a wide variety of emergency response programs. An essential
part of this mission is the SORD communication linkage
with the ARL Regional
Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) and the ARL
Real-time Environmental Applications and Display sYstem
(READY).
As it is now organized, SORD operates with close linkages
with several DOE functions, including the Nuclear Emergency
Search Team (NEST). Following the formation of the Cooperative
Institute for Atmospheric Studies and Terrestrial Application,
a new research emphasis on air quality in an arid environment
is evolving. The research underway is directed towards
issues related to atmospheric particles and optical transmission,
of interest and revelance to both NOAA and DOE.
In the late 1940's, the predecessor to the U.S. Department
of Energy selected an isolated U.S. Navy weapons test range
in the Upper Snake River Plain of Idaho as the site for
a nuclear research facility. The mission of the site was
to develop peaceful applications of nuclear energy -- primarily
the generation of electricity. In 1952, the Experimental
Breeder Reactor-1 produced the world's first commercial
electricity by lighting the nearby town of Arco. Further
research has produced many nuclear applications to medicine,
and to nuclear and chemical waste management.
The Field Research
Division began at the National Reactor Testing Station
(NRTS) in 1948 as a Weather Bureau Research Station,
another part of the Special Projects Section. The initial
objective was to describe the meteorology and climatology
of the NRTS. The focus was on protecting the health and
safety of site workers and nearby residents. The first
studies were aimed at learning micro-meteorological behavior
e.g., how meteorology effected iodine deposition and
subsequent uptake into the food chain, and how to quantify
nuclear radiation doses.
Early attempts to accurately describe atmospheric behavior
around the site were frustrated by a lack of knowledge
of atmospheric transport and dispersion processes, which
was compounded by a lack of observations and data. Therefore
there arose an early need to develop technology to observe
and understand the boundary layer atmosphere. By the late
1950's, the Division was developing tetroon technology
to conduct Lagrangian experiments of air flow and dispersion.
Tetroons, quasi-constant-volume (about 1 m3)
mylar balloons that follow isentropic surfaces, were released
and tracked by radar with Division-developed miniature
transponders. The Division's data were in high demand by
other researchers in the Weather Bureau. Soon, other agencies
such as the Atomic Energy Commission, signed on to participate
in experiments to aquire unique data sets in specialized
studies. The technology quickly migrated to experiments
along sea coasts to study sea-land breezes, to mountain
valleys where nocturnal drainage and daytime heating induced
flows were studied, and on to large cities to study urban
heat island effects.
By the 1960's, the Division had earned a reputation as
developers and implementers of atmospheric tracer technology.
Experiments were devised using fluorescent dyes such as
methyl iodide. The technology eventually expanded to include
fluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons.
The small network of meteorological stations of the 1950's
was expanded for more frequent, closely spaced data over
the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (former NRTS).
Better resolution data allowed Division scientists to develop
transport and diffusion models. In particular, one of the
earliest-known puff dispersion models (a forerunner of
the current MDIFF model used at the INEEL for a wide range
of emergency planning, emergency response and dose reconstruction
applications) was developed by FRD. The use of Division
data by other modelers and the development of it's own
puff model brought the group in close contact with the
modeling community. The current 31 station mesonet was
designed and constructed in the 1990's.
By the mid-70's, the Division was a major participant
in experiments ranging from building wake studies to continental
scale transport. A series of studies of aircraft wake vorticies
for the Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration were
begun in the 1970's, adding another dimension to the Division's
micrometeorological expertise. In recent years, these initial
studies involving aircraft have evolved into a major airborne
geosciences program, employing specially equipped light
aircraft.
The Division was an early pioneer in adapting electron
capture technology to measure perfluorocarbon and sulfur-hexofluoride
tracers. The currently-used modern whole air sampler was
designed and tested in the 1980's. In the 1990's, the Division
further developed continuous tracer measurement techniques
to accompany whole air sampling. This technology has been
adapted to a wide range of mobile platforms, from vans
to aircraft to boats. Laboratory analyses, data management
and results presentation have been automated to where 24-hour
turnaround is possible after each day's field collection.
This allows for nearly realtime quality control of data
processes.
Field Research Division support to the Department of Energy
and it's contractors has expanded over the years from a
narrow health and safety focus to one which covers a full
range of activities involving state, local, tribal and
contractor organizations. Climatological studies, most
recently a study of excessive precipitation return periods,
provide the basis for construction design and planning.
Routine daily and special criteria forecasts based on a
solid knowledge of Snake River Plain meteorology are used
for operational planning on and around the INEEL. Meteorologists
staff the DOE Emergency Operations Center to interpret
meteorological conditions and model descriptions during
emergencies, such as the devastating range fires of 1996.
Meteorological conditions, based on archived data, are
tailored to emergency-specific exercise requirements for
the EOC using the same INELVIZ display system which communicates
31-station mesonet data, forecasts and advisories to over
two dozen INEEL client workstations.
Much of FRD's success is attributable to it's leadership.
Two recent Directors, C. Ray Dickson and G. E. “Gene”,
together directed FRD for over 30 years. In the interim
following their respective retirements, David George and
Dr. Kirk Clawson served as Acting Directors. Dr. Timothy
Crawford was appointed the Division Director in December
1998 until his tragic death in 2002. Currently Dr. Kirk
Clawson is serving as Acting Director.
Summary
NOAA ARL also maintains relations with foreign countries
to promote exchange of research meteorologists and research
results pertaining to meteorological aspects of air pollution.
One of the more active areas of cooperative research has
involved Russia, under the 1972 Nixon-Podgorny Agreement
forming the US/USSR Joint Committee on Cooperation in the
Field of Environmental Protection, and under the 1993 Gore-Chernomyrdin
Agreement forming the US/Russia Commission on Economic
and Technological Cooperation. Similar agreements are in
place with Canada, Japan, China, Mexico, and several European
countries. NOAA ARL plays an active role in the International
Joint Commission between the US and Canada, and in the
North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (under
the auspices of the North American Free Trade Association
treaty).
ARL has spent its lifetime at the interface between NOAA
and other agencies. ARL serves as a point of contact for
access to NOAA science by other agencies with requirement
for products related to atmospheric dispersion and air
quality. The way in which ARL works with other agencies
is in complete accord with standard NOAA procedures --
ARL provides the science for other agencies to tailor,
as necessary, to satisfy their own needs. ARL also serves
as a mechanism by which special tools developed in other
agencies can be utilized in studies directly in support
of NOAA's Strategic Plan. Government policy is increasingly
in favor of inter-agency cooperation. ARL has been operating
in this mode for over fifty years, and looks forward to
this new era in which even more cooperation is required
to conduct meaningful scientific research.
There is now a website dedicated to the
history of NOAA at www.history.noaa.gov. In addition,
ARL field offices have their own history pages at:
1. It is not clear whether this directive (OMB-62) is
still in force. However, a recent effort of the Federal
Coordinator of Meteorology has been to obtain agency-wide
approval for the intent of the directive, regardless of
its current official status.
2. AIRMoN is
the Atmospheric Integrated Research Monitoring Network.
AIRMoN has two main components -- AIRMoN-dry and AIRMoN-wet.
The former is an ATDD activity.
The latter is led by ARL Silver Spring.
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