ETEX - European Tracer Experiment

The European Tracer Experiment (ETEX) was established to evaluate the validity of long-range transport models for real-time application in emergency management and to assemble a database which will allow the evaluation of long-range atmospheric dispersion models in general. ETEX main objectives were to conduct a European-scale tracer experiment, and test the capability of institutes responsible for emergency response to forecast in real-time atmospheric dispersion. Following this, the Atmospheric Transport Model Evaluation Study II (ATMES II) simulated the tracer experiment with the same meteorological input data for all models.

The figure shows calculated concentrations and corresponding observations for the first ETEX release. Observations are plotted as circles and coloured according to the observed concentrations. The large blue circle marks the release point.

Duration: 1992 - 1998

Funded by: EC and the Swedish Radiation Protection Agency (SSI)

Responsible at SMHI: Joakim Langner and Lennart Robertson

Web site: ETEX home page

References

Langner, J., Robertson, L., Persson, C., and A. Ullerstig (1998) Validation of the operational emergency response model at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute using data from the ETEX and the Chernobyl accident. Atmos. Environ., Vol. 32, No. 24, pp. 4325-4333.

Langner, J., Robertson, L., Persson, C., and A. Ullerstig (1997) The operational emergency response model at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). In Proceedings from the ETEX symposium an long-range atmospheric transport, model verification and emergency response, Vienna 1997, K. Nodop (ed.), EUR 17346, European Commission

Robertson, L., and J. Langner (1998) Source function estimate by means of adjoint variational data assimilation applied to the ETEX-I tracer experiment. Atmos. Environ., Vol. 32, No. 24, pp. 4219-4225.