Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability: Real-Time Modeling of Airborne Hazardous Materials

Abstract

The Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a centralized federal project for assessing atmospheric releases of hazardous materials in real time. Since ARAC began making assessments in 1974, the project has responded to over 60 domestic and international incidents. ARAC can model radiological accidents in the United States within 30 to 90 min, using its operationally robust, three-dimensional atmospheric transport and dispersion models, extensive geophysical and dose-factor databases, meteorological data acquisition systems, and experienced staff. Although it was originally conceived and developed as an emergency response and assessment service for providing dose-assessment calculations after nuclear accidents, it has proven to be an extremely adaptable system, capable of being modified to respond also to nonradiological hazardous releases. In 1991, ARAC responded to three major events: the oil fires in Kuwait, the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, and an herbicide spill into the upper Sacramento River in California. Modeling the atmospheric effects of these events added significantly to the range of problems that ARAC can address and demonstrated that the system can be adapted to assess and respond to concurrent, multiple, unrelated events at different locations.