About

In this project we will deal with three fundamental problems:

(i) climate and meteorology;

(ii) extreme fire behaviour and

(iii) smoke emission and dispersion.

The methodologies to be applied to these problems will be based on experimental observation of the processes at multiple scales (laboratory, field experiments and full scale fires), remote sensing, and physical and semi empirical modelling, using advanced computational methods to provide at least a partial understanding of the processes and to integrate them in a decision support platform.

Given the complexity of the processes, we will split them into smaller problems that will be studied separately as deeply as our resources and time allow; then we will make an integration effort to link the various scales and process.

To deal with atmospheric processes we will use satellite and radar data, discrete measurements and weather prediction model results; in the analysis of combustion and fire spread processes we will use infra-red cameras, heat transfer sensors, PIV techniques both at laboratory and at field scales.

We will perform analysis of smoke dispersion and concentration using satellite and aerial images as well as data from monitoring sensors and numerical chemical transport models.