Atmospheric Sciences Section
The Atmospheric Sciences Section within Argonne National Laboratory's Environmental Science Division (EVS) conducts research and assessment studies in the fields of air resources, including air pollution, chemical accident releases, chemical/biological agent releases, cooling tower, and noise impacts. Staff scientists and engineers evaluate, develop, and improve air quality and noise-related databases and computer models for emission estimation, dispersion, and exposure levels of air pollutants and noise. The staff also evaluates technologies for emission control and process changes for emission minimization. Environmental impacts on air resources of human activities are predicted through the use of these databases and models.
Over the years, the staff have been actively involved in developing, improving, and validating advanced computer models in the areas of pollutant releases over complex terrain, accidental releases of toxic chemicals, chemical hazard and risk assessments, photochemical processes, long-range transport, cooling tower impacts, and community noise impacts.
Examples of computer models developed or improved by the staff include:
- Air Quality Utility Information System (AQUIS), a PC-based data management system capable of maintaining inventories of air pollutant emissions from a large number of emission sources.
- Air Compliance Advisor (ACA), a PC-based model that enables air pollution managers to evaluate and compare air pollution control options as to cost and practicality for criteria and toxic air pollutants from a wide variety of source types.
- Sulfate Transport Eulerian Model-II (STEM-II), a regional-scale transport/chemistry/removal model capable of simultaneously modeling photochemical ozone and acid aerosol formation, transport, and deposition.
- NOISEMAP Model, a U.S. Air Force model for evaluating noise impacts of aircraft flyovers; ANL staff developed an advanced plotting package (NMPLOT) for noise level contours and codes for efficient application of the model for military and civilian joint use of an airport and related assessment studies.
Other areas that highlight the capabilities of the Atmospheric Sciences Section include:
- Risk assessments for environmental and safety impacts
- Ambient air quality, PSD, emission-offset, and visibility impact assessments
- Estimation of source terms of complex emission sources
- Experimental validation of models of atmospheric transport for military smoke and supporting meteorological tower measurements for emergency response applications
- Predictions of consequences of chemical accident and chemical/biological agent releases
- Single-event aircraft noise impact analysis
Section Members
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(630)252-4076
(630)252-3194
