Porting a fast-running wildfire plume model for use in national security and climate applications
In this project, the code for the fast-running Freitas wildfire plume model was successfully ported into the NARAC system, creating an operations-ready capability for predicting the transport of hazardous smoke from large wildfires. “Porting” refers to copying a section of code from one software package to another while accounting for unique dependencies in each software package. In this case, the code was ported from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model, which is used extensively by the project team. To verify correct implementation, model results from the updated NARAC system were compared to those from WRF and the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) forecast model, which also employs the Freitas scheme. The NARAC User Interface (UI) and code documentation were also updated to include the new wildfire plume option, and a wildfire case was added to the NARAC test suite. The code was used in a real-time, semi-operational setup to predict smoke transport during the Cerro Pelado fire near Los Alamos National Laboratory in May 2022. The Freitas plume model was also tested for LLNL climate applications. Although the code was not ported into the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM), it was tested offline using E3SM atmospheric inputs, and results were compared to existing high-resolution plume predictions from large-eddy simulations in WRF. The code implementation and testing completed during this project will enable future work predicting smoke transport from large wildfires in LLNL national security and climate mission spaces.