HBCU-Excellence in Research: Dynamics of Orographic Effects on Major Wildfires that Occurred in the Southwest United States under Diverse Mesoscale Environments

重大野火是一种日益严重的自然灾害，对生命和财产构成毁灭性威胁。2018年野火季节是加州有记录以来最致命、最具破坏性的野火季节，已导致100多人死亡，造成超过35亿美元的损失。我们对基本大气过程及其与复杂地形和火热的相互作用如何在复杂地形的下坡地区(如美国西南部)产生迅速蔓延的野火的理解存在很大差距。因此，即使提前几个小时预测导致火势迅速蔓延到下坡地区的阵发性、极端干燥的风暴潮仍然具有挑战性。该项目的新发现可以用来改善美国林业局(USFS)和国家气象局(National Weather Service)对火灾天气预报的大气环境条件的表述。改进的火灾天气预报有可能提高公共安全，减少生命和财产损失。该项目的研究成果将提高研究生和本科课程的内容。该项目将在北卡罗来纳农工州立大学(NCAT)培养和培训研究生和本科生，这是历史上为数不多的进行大气科学研究的黑人学院和大学之一。此外，NCAT调查人员计划访问高中教师和学生并向他们展示结果，以拓宽他们的地球和环境科学知识，并招募学生进入气象学。NCAT、安布里-里德尔航空大学、USFS和阿贡国家实验室将建立一个研究和教育网络。在该研究项目中，将广泛研究发生在加利福尼亚州北部、中部和南部以及亚利桑那州中部的四场历史性和破坏性的野火，以及在现实世界背景下观察到的几起重大火灾事件(重大科学野外实验)。研究方法将包括使用最先进的允许对流的中尺度计算机模型来模拟大气、地形和火灾本身之间的复杂相互作用。对于现场实验案例研究，非常高分辨率的传感器将提供关于火灾-大气相互作用的观测数据，以便与模型模拟进行比较。这些模拟和观测技术将使研究小组能够诊断天气系统如何与地形相互作用并产生非常猛烈的风，进而为野火在美国西南部主要发达地区边缘的社区传播创造有利环境。计算机模型允许火和风相互作用，并将使研究有助于加剧和传播这些毁灭性野火的大气运动。这将导致在未来的野火事件中更好地预测火灾强度和运动。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Major wildfires are a growing natural hazard, posing a devastating threat to life and property. The 2018 wildfire season was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season on record in California, having led to over 100 fatalities and caused more than $3.5 billion in damages. There is a great deficit in our understanding of how fundamental atmospheric processes and their interactions with complex terrain and fire heat can produce a rapid spread of wildfire over downslope regions of complex terrain, such as those in the southwest U.S. As a result, it remains challenging to forecast, even a few hours in advance, the gusty, extremely dry wind surges responsible for rapid fire spread over downslope regions. New findings from the project could be used to improve the representations of the atmospheric environmental conditions for fire weather forecasts by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the National Weather Service. Improved fire weather forecasts have the potential to increase public safety and reduce loss of life and property. The research results derived from this project will enhance the contents of graduate and undergraduate courses. The project will educate and train graduate and undergraduate students at North Carolina A&T State University (NCAT), one of very few Historically Black Colleges and Universities conducting atmospheric science research. In addition, NCAT investigators plan to visit and present results to high-school teachers and students to broaden their Earth and environmental science knowledge as well as to recruit students into meteorology. A research and education network will be built up among the NCAT, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, USFS, and Argonne National Laboratory. In the research project, four historic and devastating wildfires that occurred in northern, central and southern California and central Arizona, as well as several significant fire events observed under real-world settings (major scientific field experiments), will be studied extensively. The research approach will involve simulating the complex interactions among the atmosphere, terrain, and the fire itself with state-of-art convection-permitting mesoscale computer models. For the field experiment case studies, very high-resolution sensors will provide observational data on the fire-atmosphere interactions for comparison with the model simulations. These simulation and observational techniques will enable the research team to diagnose how weather systems interact with the terrain and produce very gusty winds that in turn create a favorable environment for wildfire spread in communities on the edge of major developed regions of the southwestern U.S. The computer models allow the fire and winds to interact and will enable the study of atmospheric motions that contribute to the intensification and spread of these devastating wildfires. This will lead to better predictions of fire intensity and motion in future wildfire events.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.