Atmospheric dispersion modelling in the cloud

For both military and civilian purposes, the assessment of the impact of a CBRN agent release is crucial. To assess the area of contamination of an agent, atmospheric dispersion models can be used. A web application for assessing the impact of CBRN-type incidents is currently being developed in the frame of a joint project of the Royal Military Academy of Belgium, the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium and ECMWF. It is hosted on the European Weather Cloud system, benefiting from the closeness to the ECMWF meteorological data and from the computing power. The application is designed to provide both deterministic and ensemble dispersion modelling capabilities for any worldwide hazardous release. 

The dispersion model programs are wrapped in Julia, a modern technical computing language that runs in the backend of the web application. The Julia package manager offers an efficient and easy way to port third-party libraries, avoiding the sometimes painful installation of scientific softwares. For example, the Lagrangian dispersion model FLEXPART can be installed with a one-liner, which makes it very easy to use on the cloud once Julia is installed.

The main objective of the application is to provide a quick and reliable decision-making input for non-experts in dispersion modelling in case of CBRN-incidents. Response models will also be implemented using event driven simulation to account for external data (population density, topography etc.). Besides, the application can also be used as a user-friendly interface to multiple dispersion models, making it easier to run, visualize and execute simulations for more experienced users.