Urban Meteorological Modelling for Nuclear Emergency Preparedness

Abstract

The main objectives of the current EU project ‘‘Integrated Systems for Forecasting Urban Meteorology, Air Pollution and Population Exposure’’ (FUMAPEX) are the improvement of meteorological forecasts for urban areas, the connection of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models to urban air pollution and population dose models, the building of improved urban air quality information and forecasting systems, and their application in cities in various European climates. In addition to the forecast of the worst air-pollution episodes in large cities, the potential use of improved weather forecasts for nuclear emergency management in urban areas, in case of hazardous releases from nuclear accidents or terror acts, is considered. Such use of NWP data is tested for the Copenhagen metropolitan area and the Øresund region. The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) is running an experimental version of the HIRLAM NWP model over Zealand including the Copenhagen metropolitan area with a horizontal resolution of 1.4 km, thus approaching the city-scale. This involves 1-km resolution physiographic data with implications for the urban surface parameters, e.g. surface fluxes, roughness length and albedo. For the city of Copenhagen, the enhanced high resolution NWP forecasting will be provided to demonstrate the improved dispersion forecasting capabilities of the Danish nuclear emergency preparedness decision support system, the Accident Reporting and Guidance Operational System (ARGOS), used by the Danish Emergency Management Agency (DEMA).