ESRL helps develop a response system for airborne threats ESRL’s
Rich Jesuroga pulled up a map of Fort Worth, Texas on his
computer, and clicked the mouse once in a suburb. “Suppose
there’s a toxic release here,” he said. Within one minute,
Jesuroga, a researcher in ESRL’s Global Systems Division,
learned that prevailing conditions would swirl the imaginary
airborne toxin west. Within two minutes, he traced a polygon
over the “hottest” part of the dispersing plume—the people there
would need to be evacuated first—and he pointed to an icon that,
when clicked, would send out a warning through a variety of
systems, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s
(FEMA) Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. This is Draft
One of a collaborative NOAA project called the Geo-Targeted
Alerting System, or GTAS, newly funded by FEMA for up to five
years. ESRL researchers and colleagues at NOAA’s Air Resources
Laboratory and the National Weather Service hope to learn how
scientists can best support the emergenc