EAGER: Exploratory Studies of Wildfire Plume Dynamics and Microphysics

野火对全国乃至全球的生命和财产造成巨大影响。野火的一个方面没有受到太多关注，那就是烟羽及其与大气的相互作用。2016年夏末，美国国家科学基金会批准了怀俄明州国王航空研究飞机的短期部署，以提供爱达荷州博伊西附近火灾的空中测量。这笔奖金将资助对这些数据的分析，以确定这些测量是否能够提供足够的信息来回答有关野火羽流特征的许多悬而未决的问题。该项目的潜在影响是对火灾行为模型的验证和改进，这可能允许更安全、更有效地利用空气和地面资源来扑灭野火。野火羽流与航空和空气质量之间也有重要的联系。研究人员将分析在2016年8月爱达荷州博伊西东北部一场大型野火的快速部署（RaDFIRE-2016）活动中收集的数据。野火羽流动力学和微物理研究主要通过数值模拟模拟和地面遥感观测进行。RaDFIRE活动是初步测试，以确定怀俄明大学国王航空研究飞机上的仪器是否能够成功观察重要的野火特征。初步分析表明，测试是成功的，但需要进行更彻底的分析，以确定数据是否足够，以回答有关羽流动力学和微物理的未解决问题。该项目适合美国国家科学基金会的EAGER项目，因为它专注于未经测试但具有潜在变革性的研究理念，采用了一种完全不同的分析方法。

Wildfires have a tremendous impact on lives and property around the country and the globe. One aspect of wildfires that has not received as much attention is the the smoke plume and how it interacts with the atmosphere. In the late summer of 2016, NSF approved a short deployment of the Wyoming King Air research aircraft to provide airborne measurements of a fire near Boise, Idaho. This award will fund the analysis of that data to determine whether the measurements are able to provide enough information to answer the many outstanding questions about the characteristics of wildfire plumes. The potential impact of the project is on the validation and improvement of fire behavior models, which may allow a safer and more efficient usage of air and ground resources for fighting wildfires. There is also a significant connection between wildfire plumes and aviation and air quality. The researcher will analyze data collected during the Rapid Deployment to Wildfires (RaDFIRE-2016) campaign which sampled a large wildfire northeast of Boise, Idaho in August 2016. Studies of wildfire plume dynamics and microphysics have mainly been conducted through numerical modeling simulations and observed through ground-based remote sensing. The RaDFIRE campaign was an initial test to determine whether instruments on the University of Wyoming King Air research aircraft could successfully observe important wildfire characteristics. Initial analysis suggests that the test was successful, but more thorough analysis is needed to determine whether the data is adequate enough to answer unresolved questions about plume dynamics and microphysics. The project fits within the EAGER program at NSF due to the focus on untested but potentially transformative research ideas that employ a radically different analysis approach.