Evaluation of a mesoscale atmospheric dispersion modeling system with observations from the 1980 Great Plains mesoscale tracer field experiment. Part I: Datasets and meteorological simulations

Abstract The Colorado State University mesoscale atmospheric dispersion (MAD) numerical modeling system, which consists of a prognostic mesoscale meteorological model coupled to a mesoscale Lagrangian particle dispersion model, has been used to simulate the transport and diffusion of a perfluorocarbon tracer-gas cloud for one afternoon surface release during the July 1980 Great Plains mesoscale tracer field experiment. Ground-level concentration (GLC) measurements taken along arcs of samplers 100 and 600 km downwind of the release site at Norman, Oklahoma, up to three days after the tracer release were available for comparison. Quantitative measures of a number of significant dispersion characteristics obtained from analysis of the observed tracer cloud's moving GLC “footprint” have been used to evaluate the modeling system's skill in simulating this MAD case. MAD is more dependent upon the spatial and temporal structure of the transport wind field than is short-range atmospheric dispersion. For the Great...