North Central Research Station

Dr. Daewon W. Byun (Daewon.Byun@mail.uh.edu), Department of Geosciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX; Dr. Warren E. Heilman (wheilman@fs.fed.us), USDA Forest Service, East Lansing, MI; Dr. Joseph J. Charney (jcharney@fs.fed.us), USDA Forest Service, East Lansing, MI; Xindi Bian (xbian@fs.fed.us), USDA Forest Service, East Lansing, MI.

Purpose:   Establish an air quality prediction system at the Eastern Area Modeling Consortium (EAMC) to allow for the study and prediction of wildland and prescribed fire impacts on regional air quality

Objectives:

1. Study model linkage issues of fire emissions and smoke distributions in the air quality prediction system.
2. Link the EAMC operational MM5 prediction system with the University of Houston's Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) forecasting system and the BlueSky system.
3. Assess the impact of wildland and prescribed fires on regional air quality.
4. Verification of forecasting skill and diagnostic evaluation of modeling components.