HQ​

Starting in early February, Xinrong Ren will participate in the Fluxes of Greenhouse Gases in Maryland (FLAGG-MD) project to continue characterizing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the Baltimore-Washington area. The University of Maryland’s Cessna 402B research aircraft will fly over this area to measure GHGs, meteorological variables, as well as other trace gases and aerosol optical properties. The emissions of GHGs will be estimated based on the aircraft measurements and are compared to the emissions in state and national emission inventories. The FLAGG-MD project has produced policy-relevant science to provide improved quantification of anthropogenic GHG emissions to the scientific community and to regulatory agencies such as Maryland Department of Environment through direct analysis of ambient measurements and model simulations.

FRD​

FRD was successful in getting the 2013-2017 interagency agreement with the Department of Energy (DOE) Idaho Operations Office extended for another nine months to September 2018. An extension was necessary after DOE procrastinated in moving forward to get a new five-year agreement in place. Recent agreements have been based on calendar years, but DOE has indicated that they favor a new agreement based on fiscal years. There are pros and cons with either calendar due to the timing of incremental funding for the agreement.

Brad Reese is investigating options for developing a new web interface for both the local HYRad dispersion system and for other ARL applications that are based on the HYSPLIT model. The underlying issue is that the dominant web application programming interfaces (APIs) used for building applications have been changing rapidly. The current HYSPLIT interface is based on APIs that were dominant just a few years ago, but are now rapidly fading out. Frequent changes in licensing policies by individual companies are also a factor, which is why NOAA (including ARL) generally shifted away from using the Google Maps API for many of its forecast products. Brad is looking for a combination of APIs that have the desired features but are less likely to fall out of favor in a short period of time.