Accidental or terrorist releases of hazardous materials into the atmosphere can impact large populations and cause significant loss of life or property damage.
Plume predictions have been shown to be extremely valuable in guiding an effective and timely response. The two greatest sources of uncertainty in the prediction of the consequences of hazardous atmospheric releases result from poorly characterized source terms and lack of knowledge about the state of the atmosphere
as reflected in the available meteorological data. In this report, we discuss the development of a new event reconstruction methodology that provides probabilistic source term estimates from field measurement data for both accidental and clandestine releases.