Automated System for Evaluationg BlueSky Predictions of Smoke Impacts on Community Health and Ecosystems. Final Report: JFSP 03-1-3-09

摘要

Predictions of smoke impacts on communities and ecosystems are currently being made by the BlueSky smoke forecast system; providing real-time predictions of surface smoke concentrations from prescribed fire, wildfire, and agricultural burn activities. Currently operational in the Pacific Northwest, BlueSky has already a demonstrated success regarding what inter-agency collaboration can accomplish. A critical component of BlueSky that needed to be addressed was the development of an automated verification system to evaluate predicted impacts from smoke on communities and ecosystems. A verification system is necessary because land managers need to evaluate their burn decisions against potential National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) exceedences. To achieve this, the verification of predicted concentrations against observed must be provided in a timely (i.e. real-time) manner. Thus the original proposal included two major components: (1) improving existing monitoring systems to make the data available in real-time (e.g., in a manner similar to the Washington State Department of Ecology, WSDOE); and (2) implementing a software system that compares these observational data with the smoke concentration fields predicted by BlueSky.