ARL News

Golden Anniversary meeting at Research Triangle Park

 

September 12, 2005

In 1955, three meteorologists from the Special Projects Office of the Weather Bureau were assigned to collaborate with the U.S. Public Health Service in Cincinnatti. Subsequently, the partnership was integrated into NOAA and EPA, becoming a component of the Air Resources Laboratory of NOAA and the National Exposure Research Laboratory of EPA. Over the years, the partnership has flourished. Today, there are about fifty NOAA personnel dedicated to the association, now recognized as the Atmospheric Sciences Modeling Division of ARL.

The models developed through this collaborative effort have become the mainstream tools for assessing air quality and atmospheric deposition within the U.S.A. Recently, they have been integrated with the weather forecasting systems of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction to provide the new operational air quality forecasting capability that is now being tested.

This multi-agency association has become a poster child for interagency collaboration, and is widely seen as a model on which other partnerships among agencies might well be constructed.

A major meeting, under the auspices of the American Meteorological Society, will be held at Research Triangle Park on 20/21/22 September, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the EPA/NOAA partnership. The meeting will bring together past and present luminaries, presenting material that will outline the paths followed in the past and the future activities currently anticipated. A well-recognized future emphasis is the association between air quality issues and the rest of the environment – such as in the context of public health, ecosystem stressors, and climate change.

More information: http://www.ametsoc.org/meet/fainst/05_airqualmodel.html
Contact information: Bruce B. Hicks
Phone: (301) 713-0684
e-mail: bruce.hicks@noaa.gov