Progress Report I.: Inter-RPO (NESCAUM) Project

Fast Aerosol Sensing Tools for Natural Event Tracking (FASTNET)

February 2004, R. B. Husar, E. M. Robinson, K. Hoijarvi, CAPITA, T. Funk, S. Raffuse, STI

Summary

The Inter-RPO FASNET Pilot Project for the tracking and detailed analysis of major natural aerosol events from forest fires, windblown dust and other sources is well under way. Live web-connection to a dozen relevant near real time and historical aerosol datasets have been established. The data are accessible to the analysts through a set of web pages as Analysts Consoles, which allow browsing and some analysis of the various data steams form surface monitoring networks, satellites and model simulations. The community interaction is facilitated by an interactive website. The connection to AQ management is fostered through the evolving Managers Consoles. By April 2004 the pilot FASTNET aerosol-tracking/analysis system will be ready for the normal April-September aerosol event season. The completion of the data access, browsing and analysis tools will be under the guidance of a Steering Group with anticipated feedback and contributions from the community.

Introduction

The goal of this project is to characterize the natural haze condition, through the detailed analysis of major natural aerosol events from forest fires, windblown dust and other sources. This, first year pilot project focuses on demonstrating the feasibility and utility of a system for Fast Aerosol Sensing Tools for Natural Event Tracking (FASTNET). The demonstration project includes the tasks below.

  1. Preparing candidate real-time data list and archiving/processing procedures
  2. Preparing full documentation of three past events (2000-2003)
  3. Real-time tracking and documentation for two current events (2004)
  4. Preparing a long-term plan for FASTNET

This is the first progress report on the FASTNET Project, summarizing the activities November 2003- January 2004, covering Tasks 1 and 2. The formal FASTNET proposal as well as additional information can be found in the FASTNET presentation at the November 2003 Inter-RPO meeting in St. Louis. The main repository of related information is the FASTNET Community Website. Most of the links in this report point to various folders in the Community Website.

Datasets for FASTNET

The FASTNET Project requires a large number of aerosol-related datasets for the tracking and understanding of major events. These datasets arise from a variety of surface and satellite sensors, processed to different levels of completion and usually delivered by secondary and tertiary providers, following a value-adding data flow chain.

This project utilizes the Aerosol Data and Services Federation  (DATAFED.NET) for accessing and sharing aerosol-related data and processing services. DATAFED is an evolving broader network fostering the sharing of data and processing services in support of atmospheric science and air quality decision-making. Candidate real-time data for FASTNET are made accessible through the registration and catalog services (Figure 1).

Click on the images to view live web-program

 

Figure 1. a) Dataset Catalog Editor  b) Dataset Viewer

The datasets themselves reside on the server of their respective providers. However, data are made accessible to the browsing and analysis tools through a uniform interface. In this context, ‘data’ refers to both monitoring and modeling information. New web-based datasets can be added to the federated data system by a web-form-based registration facility. The FASTNET community is encouraged to suggest relevant web-based datasets for inclusion into the federation catalog. The discussions associated with individual datasets are conducted in the individual dataset pages on this site.

There are a dozen dataset that currently are available in near real time, i.e. within about a day of sampling. The datasets include surface weather parameters (incl. visibility) at 1200 stations, PM2.5 mass concentration at 150 sites; GOES, SeaWiFS and TOMS satellite data, GOES, NAAPS model predictions for sulfate, dust and smoke. The historical datasets include: VIEWS Aerosol Chemistry dataset (1988-2003), SeaWiFS US (2000-2002), ATSR Global Fire locations (1996-2001).

All these datasets are web-accessible for the FASTNET community and ready for spatio-temporal exploration through the Analysts Consoles described below. More importantly, the analysts can create their own web pages that incorporate these datasets. A web-based editor is provided for the creation custom data views using a relatively simple web service programming language. These tools are under development but available for testing.

Data Viewing and Analysis Tools

The software tools for FASNET are also built from the software components (web services) available in shared DATAFED system. The software components for data access, processing and rendering are shared resources for and by the community. Both the distributed data as well as the Web Service components can be combined into ‘web-applications’ by the users. Each web-application is a simple JavaScript-enhanced web page.

Below is an illustrative set of simple tools built from data and software services in DATAFED. The actual tools to be used by the FASTNET community will be more polished and hopefully enhanced and augmented by a number of different providers. Here again, the community is encouraged to use these examples to build their own ‘applications’ and expose them on their own server.

Web-based software tools under the umbrella of Analysts Consoles are to aid the analysis of real-time and historical aerosol events. These include tools for viewing individual current datasets, superimposing multiple data layers, e.g. chemical and trajectory data, transforming data e.g. gridding and contouring, animations, etc. An Analysts Console (or dashboard) is a facility to display the state of the current aerosol system. It is anticipated that the Analysts Consoles will be the key dashboards for establishing the emergence, evolution and decay of aerosol events. The analyst community, using these tools will make operational decisions regarding individual events.

Each Analysts Console consists of a collection of views, each representing a different aspect of the aerosol-relevant system. The key features of these consoles include:

·        data from a variety of disparate providers is brought together

·        the sampling time and spatial subset (zoom rectangle) for each dataset is synchronized

·        the user can customize the console’s data content and format

Click on the images to view live web-program

 

Figure 2. Example candidate views for Analysts Consoles

Animators are used to display dynamic content, such as the evolution and transport of aerosol clouds. An animation is a rendering of sequential data sets and it can be invoked for any of the time-serial datasets. The user selects the dataset and sets the animation time range and (to some extent) the speed.

Click on the images to view live web-program

  

Figure 3. Example animation tools in support of FASTNET. A). NEXTRAD Radar b). NRL NAAPS Aerosol Model

There are also a number of tools under development aimed at easier interpretation of the available data. For example, the Gridder/Contourer utility converts the monitoring at data at discrete monitoring sites (e.g. visibility an hourly PM2.5 data) into a continuous spatial contour. The CATT tool combines aerosol concentration monitoring data, such as VIEWS and with pre-calculated trajectories to show the transport pattern.

 

Fig. 4. a). Contouring of VIEWS data b) CATT trajectory analysis tool

Managers Consoles

Web-based software tools under the umbrella of the Air Quality Manager Consoles (AQMC) are companions of the Air Quality Analysts Console (AQAC) and the FASTNET Community Website. AQMC will deliver information relevant to AQ managers: event notification to manager community, information condensing and packaging, and science/analysts resource links for tracking real-time and historical aerosol events. The specific tools include:

 

Figure 5. Draft conceptual framework of the Air Quality Managers Console

 

FASTNET Community Website

The FASTNET Community Website is an interactive site where the members share ideas, find resources, report on their observations and participate in other communal activities. This site is located at: http://capita.wustl.edu/dvoy_services/dvoy_book.aspx?path=HOME/Projects/FASTNET&mode=browse

Schedule and Project Management

November-April:     Preparation of suitable real-time datasets, software and overall system readiness

March-May:            Analysis of three historical episodes

May-August:            Real-time tracking-analysis of three episodes

Sept-Oct:                Pilot study report; Detailed FASTNET plan

The project is administered through NESCAUM (contract managers: Gary Kleiman & Rich Poirot) and coordinated by CAPITA along with STI. The FASTNET Steering Team for guidance, testing and evaluation is listed below.

Melinda Hoskin (CENRAP)

George Allen & Bill Gillespie (MANE-VU)

Donna Kenski (MWRPO)

Pat Brewer (VISTAS)

Marc Pitchford & Tom Moore (WRAP)

Jim Szykman & Fred Dimmick (EPA)

Doreen Neil (NASA)

Rick Artz (NOAA)

In addition, it is anticipated, that key contributions to FASNET will be provided by broader aerosol community interested in aerosol events.