Predicting the path of pollutants.

Abstract

With the death toll from the 1986 Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine now estimated at 125,000 people, there is no question about the importance of understanding how radiation and other hazardous substances might act if released into the atmosphere. Emergency preparedness, and the more general concerns of air quality and global climate change, are the focus of the Atmospheric Studies in Complex Terrain (ASCOT) program, developed by the US DOE. The two principal goals of ASCOT are to characterize, understand, and predict boundary layer structure and evolution over complex terrain and to develop methods for applying this knowledge to DOE tasks that involve site safety, air quality, and climate change. Since its inception, ASCOT has included a mix of measurement, analysis, and modeling activities. However, cutbacks in funding are preventing ASCOT teams from conducting additional studies to assess and improve the accuracy of their models. What is more worrisome, some scientists say, is that the public and private sectors appear reluctant to use the more successful models developed under ASCOT. In light of what happened at Chernobyl, this seems particularly foolhardy.