Collaborative Research: RAPID--Smoke Forecasting Support for the Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol absorption and Nitrogen (WE-CAN) Field Intensive

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This project is providing forecasting capabilities for the NSF-sponsored Western wildfire Experiment for Cloud chemistry, Aerosol absorption and Nitrogen (WE-CAN) field campaign. WE-CAN is a major field intensive planned for summer 2018 and includes deployment of sophisticated atmospheric chemistry instrumentation on the NSF/NCAR C-130 to sample and systematically characterize the emissions and first day of evolution of western U.S. wildfire plumes. Planning for this field campaign is currently underway and forecasting capabilities are urgently needed to ensure the success of the campaign. The WE-CAN field campaign will provide new information about emissions from wildfires, including information on the emissions of major toxic species in smoke plumes, the evolution of fine particulate matter in the plume over time, and the interactions of smoke particles with nearby clouds. The support for WE-CAN provided by this effort includes the use of (1) the real-time High Resolution Rapid Refresh smoke (HRRR-Smoke) modeling system, and (2) the FxCAVE (Forecast-extended Common AWIPS Visualization Environment) virtual client that delivers operational National Weather Service (NWS) forecast observations and forecast models. There will be at least 4 graduate student forecasters involved in WE-CAN.