On the Web at http://dust.ess.uci.edu/prp/prp˘itr
NSF Information Technology Research Proposal Submitted: February 26, 2004
Last modified: Monday 1$st$ March, 200408:56 Next Round Due: December 2004

1. Finalize Hardware/Support Budget (Pajarola, Rehbaum, Ross, Wessel) (done) (a) Visualization Cluster (VC) (Davison, Evans, Pajarola, Wessel) (done) (b) Forecast Cluster (FC) (Evans, Wessel) (done) (c) Network infrastructure (Davison, Hildebrand, Wessel) (done) (budget is missing $2535 needed for fiber-pulling labor) (d) Visualization Gizmos (Pajarola) (done) (e) Text on NACS MPC support and sysadmin (Wessel) (done) 2. Cal-(IT)$2$ Coordination (a) Ask Yee for visualization/student space (Pajarola) (done) (b) Pursue OptIPuter node status (budget implications?) (Zender) (done) (c) Include paragraph on applicability to HiPerWall (Zender) (not done) 3. Letters of Support/Collaboration/Senior Personnel Inquiries (Zender) (a) Abdibekov (IoM, Aral Sea) (received) (b) Chavez (USGS, Mojave) (received) (c) Dabdub (UCI MAE, Mojave) (no response) (d) Glantz (NCAR, Kazakhstan) (declined) (e) Goulden (ESS, Mojave) (no response) (f) Kuester (Cal-(IT)$2$/HiPerWall) (no response) (g) Mehrotra (Cal-(IT)$2$/RESCUE) (received) (h) Neff (CU/USGS, Mojave) (received) (i) Purvis (Claremont Colleges, Aral Sea) (received) (j) Randerson (ESS, Mojave) (no response) (k) Reynolds (USGS, Mojave) (received) 4. Proposal submitted Feb. 26, 2004 (done)

The next round of ITR proposals is due around December 2004. This proposal is so strong already that I plan to revise and re-submit (again!) if we are declined this round. Here are my initial thoughts on how to make a stronger proposal: 1. Strenghthen Mojave Desert (MD) ROI. Strengthen or remove Aral Sea (AS). (a) Drop Aral Sea ROI if Reviewers’ comments too hard to address (b) Ramp-up AS without de-emphasizing MD in years 3–5 (c) How to entrain Glantz for AS? (d) Solicit School of Social Ecology collaborator for AS (e) Entrain Israeli group (Rudich?) 2. Describe specific regional projects and environmental planning in text and/or letters of support. (a) CDHS (respiratory studies, valley fever) (b) CHP (likely dust/fog road closure locations/seasons) (c) DHS (NBC WMD plume scenarios) (d) FAA (Santa Ana dust/smoke plume morphology) (e) NPS (Mojave stresses/drought, sources of visibility reduction) (f) RESCUE (prototype dust/smoke response plan?) (g) SC${}^4$ (standardize scenarios for future MD simulations) (h) UCI MAE (SCAQMD model eastern boundary eddy dust flux) (i) UNCCD (land use/soil treatments to reduce desertification) (j) USGS (deposition characterization, valley fever habitat) 3. Strengthen forecast/visualization links (a) Make Joerg Meyer Co-PI (b) Provide reviewer web access to prototype dust storm rendering 4. Strengthen project management (a) 0.5 FTE project scientist/web evangelist

Project Summary. We propose to improve forecasts and real and accelerated-time visualizations of mesoscale environmental change on multiple timescales to provide infrastructure for scientific, civil, and security-related decisions involving weather and aerosol dispersal. To accomplish this, we will converge existing programs of scientific research on boundary layer aerosol prediction with research on environmental visualization and immersive forecast interaction. Our approach is twofold: 1. Create turn-key forecasting capability for particle entrainment, dispersal, and deposition using existing aerosol and mesoscale forecast models (ASE, NHS). 2. Use and improve visualization technology to realistically render the boundary layer forecasts guided by decision-makers’ assumptions of natural and anthropogenic land-use disturbance, climate change, and point source emissions (dmc,sim). We call our integration of interactive mesoscale forecasts with visualization capabilities critical for decision-makers the Laboratory for Environmental Planning (LEP).

LEP links three sophisticated information technology layers into a flexible environmental planning and decision-making system. LEP’s core is the (existing) Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model with aerosol module enhancements. WRF will simulate Regions of Interest (ROIs), areas of high scientific, civil, and security interest that have significant and variable particulate concentrations on multiple timescales. The second layer is the high-performance visualization front-end for rendering the real and accelerated-time simulations from user specified projections, vantage points, and realistic illumination (ASE). The third layer controls the forecast boundary conditions with interactive devices for decision-makers to feed-back into the simulation and modify the forecast in real time (dmc,sim). LEP initially targets arid regions for their relative visual simplicity, single aerosol type (soil mineral dust), and impacts on downwind populations (NHS).

The LEP team has the requisite expertise and data to simulate and evaluate two complementary ROIs that span the spectrum of landscape disturbance from natural to heavily disturbed. The Mojave Desert ROI is a relatively undisturbed, periodically active particulate source upwind of densely populated areas (Los Angeles, Las Vegas). The other ROI is the Aral Sea, a heavily disturbed, persistent source upwind of sparsely populated areas. Both ROIs are susceptible to rapid activation and, potentially, mitigation. Moreover, LEP will visualize any user-prescribed passive particulate emissions, e.g., wildfire smoke (during Santa Anas) and radiological, biological, chemical explosions (i.e., NBC WMD) (NHS) and will be useful in emergency response planning.

Intellectual Merit: 1. Inert tracer and desert aerosol dispersal by mesoscale processes (e.g., gust fronts, dry convection, topography) is little studied and will improve our understanding of fast time-scale visibility and biogeochemical fluxes, and security hazards (ASE, NHS, dmc, sim). 2. Comparison of satellite and in situ observations of dust aerosol to rendered forecast data will improve our understanding and model representation of the relative roles of topography, geomorphology, and disturbance in aerosol emission, transport, and deposition (ASE, sim). 3. Applying advanced rendering techniques to mesoscale forecasts will lead to new and more efficient environmental visualization algorithms (ASE, sim). 4. The ROIs to be hindcast/forecast and monitored are conducive to science-guided planning and remediation decisions (NHS, dmc, sim).

Broader Impacts: LEP 1. Enhances research and teaching infrastructure with its convergent integration of physically based-forecasting and visualization (ASE). 2. Benefits society by enabling interactive exploration of the outcomes of land use change and disturbance scenarios on wind erosion and visibility, and the prediction of newly vulnerable landscapes in arid environments undergoing climate change (ASE). 3. Increases regional security by improving simulation of (and potentially response to) dispersal of specified inert particulate tracers (e.g., NBC WMD) (NHS).

1 Preamble

The south west United States (SW US) experiences adverse impacts from fast timescale changes in an arid environment. For example, a multi-day dust storm from the Mojave Desert blanketed Las Vegas, Nevada, April 15–17, 2002. It kept inhabitants indoors and inactive, closed construction sites, and shut down air travel. In Fall 2003, metropolitan Southern California was downwind of the dry desert regions during an intense and prolonged Santa Ana wind event (Raphael, 2003). Numerous natural and anthropogenic fires sent clouds of smoke, ash, dust, and pollutants over much of greater Los Angeles and San Diego. These dramatic events illustrate how high variability, mesoscale weather patterns over desert regions affect millions of American citizens each year (Pappagianis and Einstein, 1978; Prospero, 1999; Kolivras et al., 2001; Zender and Talamantes, 2004).

Recently planners are more concerned that domestic or international terrorists release nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the US. Planning for atmospheric natural hazards (dust storms, wildfire smoke) at first seems unrelated to preparing for security and WMD hazards. However, both natural and anthropogenic hazards are isomorphic computer modeling and visualization problems insofar as they comprise following the emission, transport, and deposition of passive aerosols (i.e., dust, soot, radionuclides) or gases (Sehmel, 1980; Guelle et al., 1998).

Concomitant with the increasing awareness of the agricultural, climatic, economic, and respiratory impact of dust storms (e.g., Glantz, 1994; Youlin et al., 2002) has been a dramatic increase in our understanding and ability to detect and to predict arid region aerosol emission and transport in recent years (e.g., Shao and Leslie, 1997; Marticorena et al., 1997; Wald et al., 1998; Zender et al., 2003a). This forecast technology has been developed for scientific (e.g., Collins et al., 2001), civil (e.g., Claiborn et al., 1998), and military (e.g., Hogan and Brody, 1993; van Donk et al., 2003) applications. Use of these mesoscale aerosol models in SW US civil planning and homeland security has not kept pace. To help remedy this, we will develop the Laboratory for Environmental Planning (LEP). LEP will produce fast-timescale forecasts of SW US dust and other aerosols, similar to efforts underway to predict intense Gobi and African dust storms (e.g., Shao et al., 2003). Moreover, LEP will integrate scientific forecasting with advanced visualization/rendering and decisionmaking capabilities.

The time seems right to integrate recent advances in weather and aerosol forecast technology with advances in interactive visualization and rendering environments so that planners may take full advantage of fast yet quantitative environmental simulations. Let us begin to make civil planners, park rangers, epidemiologists, firefighters, aviation officials, and homeland security personnel familiar with the potential of mesoscale weather and aerosol forecasts to help them understand past events and help them plan for future events. We will help close the forecast-technology-planning gap with technology friendlier to use, easier to understand, and interactively configurable for environmental planning. The decision-makers will control these quantitatively rigorous forecasts and hindcasts in a highly realistic visualization space. Our Information Technology Research (ITR) for National Priorities project would develop a physically based, scientifically evaluated, mesoscale environmental virtual reality and visualization facility.

2 Introduction

We propose to improve forecasts and real and accelerated-time visualizations of mesoscale environmental change on multiple timescales to provide infrastructure for scientific, civil, and security-related decisions involving weather and aerosol dispersal. To accomplish this, we will converge existing programs of scientific research on boundary layer aerosol prediction with research on environmental visualization and immersive forecast interaction. Our approach is twofold: 1. Create turn-key forecasting capability for particle entrainment, dispersal, and deposition using existing aerosol and mesoscale forecast models. 2. Use and improve visualization technology to realistically render the boundary layer forecasts guided by decision-makers’ assumptions of natural and anthropogenic land-use disturbance, climate change, and point source emissions. We call our integration of interactive mesoscale forecasts with visualization capabilities critical for decision-makers the Laboratory for Environmental Planning (LEP).

LEP links three sophisticated information technology layers into a flexible environmental planning and decision-making system. LEP’s core is the (existing) Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model with aerosol module enhancements. WRF will simulate Regions of Interest (ROIs), areas of high scientific, civil, and security interest that have significant and variable particulate concentrations on multiple timescales. The second layer is the high-performance visualization front-end for rendering the real and accelerated-time simulations from user specified projections, vantage points, and realistic illumination. The third layer controls the forecast boundary conditions with interactive devices for decision-makers to feed-back into the simulation and modify the forecast in real time. LEP initially targets arid regions for their relative visual simplicity, single aerosol type (soil mineral dust), and impacts on downwind populations.

2.1 Personnel Directly Involved with LEP

Table  1 lists the primary researchers affiliated with LEP (see supplementary letters of collaboration or biographical sketches).