Transcript BlueSky Implementation in CANSAC

BlueSky Implementation in
CANSAC
Julide Kahyaoglu-Koracin
Desert Research Institute - CEFA
CANSAC Workshop
Riverside, CA
May 2006
BACKGROUND
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BlueSky is a real-time smoke forecasting system that is used to
predict surface smoke concentrations (PM2.5) from prescribed fire,
agricultural burns, and wildfires.
The BlueSky smoke forecasting system was developed by the USDA
Forest Service in cooperation with the US EPA and funded by the
National Fire Plan.
It is currently being implemented and evaluated across the nation by
the members of FCAMMS.
The BlueSky Rapid Access Information System (BlueSkyRAINS) is a
web-based interactive map and database server that combines
smoke predictions, selected meteorological parameters, air parcel
trajectories, and geographic information (e.g., roads, rivers,
boundaries, etc.) in a GIS environment. BlueSkyRAINS is operational
in the Northwest U.S. (www.blueskyrains.org).
BlueSky Modeling Framework
Fire Characteristics
Meteorology
Area burned
CANSAC MM5 outputs
Fuel moisture
Winds/Temps/Moisture
Fuel loadings
12 and 4 km domains
Fire location
72 and 60 hour (-12 hr spin up) forecast
Fire ignition time
Smoke
Dispersion&Transport
Emissions
CALPUFF/CALMET modeling system
EPM emissions model
PM2.5 concentrations
Fuel consumption
Variable rate emissions
PM10, PM2.5,CO, CO2, CH4
Display
PAVE visualization package
NCL images (in progress)
Loops and hourly concentrations of PM2.5
Fire Characteristics (I)
 Information to derive fire characteristics is obtained from the
burn reporting systems. These can be multi-agency tracking
systems such as FASTRACS in the Pacific Northwest, PFIRS in
California, wildfire 209 reports (NIFC), and private manually
entered burn information.
 When the fuel loadings are not provided, the BlueSky system
has three default fuel loadings look-up tables to employ:
 1-km resolution fuel loadings mapping available for the
western US (Hardy et al., 1998).
 Fuel Characteristics Classification System (FCSS) at 1-km
resolution (www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fera/fccs/index.html).
 National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) at 1-km
resolution.
Fuel Characteristics (II)
 There are available three methods for the Fuel Moisture Model
(FMM). These are:
 NFDR
 Weighted
 Adjusted
 Ignition duration is the time period within which the whole burn
area is ignited. This is set to the run length for wildfires.
Emissions (I)
 Fuel consumption and emissions are calculated using the
Emissions Production Model (EPM)/Consume v1.03. Consume is
a fuel consumption model that computes the total amount of
fuel consumed by a fire. EPM is a model that predicts the time
rate of fuel consumption and emissions from wildland biomass
burns. Hourly emission rates of PM10, PM2.5, PM, CO, CO2, CH4
and heat release are obtained from this system.
 Deficiencies:
 Uses an integral method of prediction rather than dynamic simulation and is
limited to simple fires where area growth rates do not change significantly
over the burning period.
 Fuel moisture
 Lack of information of the current knowledge of wildland fire emissions
calculation methodology.
Emissions (II)
 EPM2BAEM preprocessing tool is used to convert EPM emissions
into the CALPUFF required format.
 Inputs:
 EPM file (hourly heat release and species emission rates).
 Location and date specific information.
 Area, elevation, initial vertical spread.
 Outputs:
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Vertices of the fire area (assumed square).
Effective height of the emissions above the ground.
Fire temperature (assumed 900 K).
Effective rise velocity.
Initial vertical spread.
Emissions rates.
Meteorology
Meteorology driving the BlueSky system is
obtained from MM5 forecasts.
A preprocessor, CALMM5, is used to extract
the meteorological fields used in CALMET.
These are:
Horizontal and vertical winds, temps, pressure,
humidity, and vapor, cloud, rain, snow, ice mixing
ratios.
Smoke Dispersion and Transport
 The BlueSky system incorporates the CALMET/CALPUFF (Scire
et al., 2000) system to predict smoke dispersion and transport.
 CALPUFF is a multi-layer, multi-species non-steady state
Lagrangian puff dispersion model which can simulate the time
and space varying pollutant transport, transformation and
removal.
 CALMET is a diagnostic meteorological model that calculates the
three dimensional winds and temperatures along with
microphysical parameters such as surface characteristics,
dispersion parameters, and mixing heights to be used by
CALPUFF dispersion model.
Smoke Dispersion and Transport
(II)
 CALMET can incorporate the output from prognostic models
such as MM5. In this case, prognostic fields can be used as
initial fields, step 1, or the observations.
 CALMET performs objective analysis using MM5 fields as
observations.
 CALPUFF fire plume:
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Temperature stratification
Wind stratification
No limit on the emission source size
Effects of plume radiative heat loss
Free of Boussinesq approximation
Burn Information
The CANSAC BlueSky system is fed by the
Wildfire 209 reports and the CANBURN webbased manual prescribed burn information
system.
Prescribed Fire Incidence Reporting System,
PFIRS, will begin to feed data into the
CANBURN system in June 2006.
BlueSky Simulations
 The BlueSky simulations are performed daily using
the MM5 output initialized at 0Z.
 These simulations start at midnight and are initialized
at 12Z.
 Surface smoke (PM2.5) concentration predictions are
obtained on the nested (12 km) and innermost (4
km) MM5 domains.
 Forecast lengths:
 60-hr for 12 km
 48-hr for 4 km
 Accomplished burns are reprocessed 4-6 days back in
order to account for carryover smoke.
BlueSky Application Examples (I)
 Wildfire simulations
initialized on 29 July
2005 00 UTC.
BlueSky Application Examples
(II)
BlueSky Application Examples
(III)
 Fire locations will be
indicated on a map in
order to help with the
assessment of the
impact from each fire.
Next Step
 Evaluation of the reported low surface pollutant
concentrations.
 Upgrades in emissions calculation methodology:
FEPS, EES, …
 Dispersion and transport module: new generation
CALPUFF, CMAQ, ….
 More organized and timely information of burn
incidence reports across the CANSAC modeling
domain.
Questions