Part of: 3D animation of wildfire plumes (3 objects) Previous
3D animation of wildfire plumes
3D animation of wildfire plumes
3D animation of wildfire plumes
3D animation of wildfire plumes
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Description
During the late summer and early fall of 2020, Colorado experienced several large wildfires. The Atmospheric Chemistry Observations & Modeling laboratory (ACOM) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) runs the atmospheric chemistry model WRF-Chem to track emissions from these fires and simulate the spread of aerosol particles and chemicals. We have developed a formulation of the Marching Cubes algorithm to create 3D isosurfaces at several chemical concentrations, and we use Google Earth as a rendering and visualization platform to display and analyze these plumes of smoke. Our Python scripts generate a multi-day animation of the wildfire, with a KMZ "tour" that flies around the active base of the fire while it is burning.