Drainage flows: A mountain-plains interface numerical case study
In January/February, 1991 an intensive set of measurements was taken around Rocky Flats near Denver, CO, USA under the auspices of the Atmospheric Studies in Complex Terrain (ASCOT) program. This region of the country is known as the Front Range, and is characterized by a transition from the relatively flat terrain of the Great Plains to the highly varied terrain of the Rocky Mountains. The mountains are oriented north-south and rise from 1800m above mean sea level (MSL) to 3600m MSL at the Continental Divide. Numerous east-west oriented valleys begin in the mountains and end at the plains interface. This terrain makes the Front Range a challenging region to model. One of the more important flows created by this severe terrain are the highly-varying drainage flows found during stagnant, wintertime conditions. These flows can interact with larger-scale mountain and synoptic winds. One goal of the ASCOT 1991 program was to gain insight into multi-scale meteorological interaction by observing wintertime drainage conditions at the mountain-valley-plains interface. ASCOT data included surface and upper air measurements on approximately a 50km{sup 2} scale. Simultaneously, an SF{sub 6} tracer release study was being conducted around Rocky Flats, a nuclear materials production facility. Detailed surface concentration measurements were completed for the SF{sub 6} plume. This combination of meteorological and tracer concentration data provided a unique data set for comparisons of mesoscale and dispersion modeling results with observations and for evaluating our capability to predict pollutant transport. Our approach is to use the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) mesoscale model to simulate atmospheric conditions and the Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Model (LPDM) to model the dispersion of the SF{sub 6}.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 10172417
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-92-2065; CONF-9209173-1; ON: DE92017445
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 22. International conference on Alpine meteorology,Toulouse (France),7-11 Sep 1992; Other Information: PBD: [1992]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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