COAMPS Application to Global and Homeland Security Threat Problems

摘要

Atmospheric dispersion problems have received more attention with regard to global and homeland security than their conventional roles in air pollution and local hazard assessment in the post 9/11 era. Consequently, there is growing interest to characterize meteorology uncertainty at both low and high altitudes (below and above 30 km, respectively). A 3-D Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Prediction System (COAMPS, developed by Naval Research Laboratory; Hodur, 1997) is used to address LLNL's task. The objective of this report is focused on the effort at the improvement of COAMPS forecast to address the uncertainty issue, and to provide new capability for high-altitude forecast. To assess the atmospheric dispersion behavior in a wider range of meteorological conditions and to expand its vertical scope for the potential threat at high altitudes, several modifications of COAMPS are needed to meet the project goal. These improvements include (1) the long-range forecast capability to show the variability of meteorological conditions at a much larger time scale (say, a year), and (2) the model physics enhancement to provide new capability for high-altitude forecast.