March 21, 2007 The Field Research Division (FRD) of the Air Resources Laboratory is featured on the cover of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). The feature article of the February 2007 issue describes a multi-agency and multi-institutional program dubbed “Pentagon Shield.” The program was instituted to develop and deploy a Pentagon building protection system to guard against a potential terrorist attack using chemical, biological, or radiological material released into the atmosphere. The Pentagon with its 25,000+ occupants represents a likely target of terrorists, as highlighted by the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon itself. A field study to determine atmospheric transport and diffusion characteristics into and around the Pentagon building was conducted by FRD in late April and early May 2004. FRD released the atmospheric tracer sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) from various locations around the Pentagon during several intensive observation periods to mimic a potential attack. FRD placed both real-time and bag samplers on, around, and in the Pentagon to measure the dispersion characteristics of the tracer into and around the building. The resultant dispersion patterns have been used to verify a series of nested meso- and building-scale meteorological models used in an automated operational building protection system. The complete system will consist of coupled outdoor and indoor components, wherein the outdoor part is essentially a sensor-data-fusion system that uses meteorological and contaminant observations as input to various models. The scientific objectives addressed by the field program involve the analysis of
atmospheric structure and the transport and diffusion process near the Pentagon, the verification
of the models, and the comparison of wind data obtained from the different measurement systems.
The specific questions addressed by the FRD contribution to the Pentagon Shield program are as
follows:
Contact information: Kirk L. Clawson |