Minerals Management Service (MMS) has signed a 1-year cooperative agreement with the University of Alabama, Huntsville that will improve meteorological/ air quality models that assess atmospheric conditions in the Gulf of Mexico. These models will assist researchers in their future findings relating to various characteristics of the atmosphere.

The $114,000 partnership between MMS and UAH seeks to improve air quality models that are tools used to assess meteorological and air quality conditions, as a result make informed decisions regarding air pollution controls.

Chris Oynes, Regional Director of the Gulf of Mexico Region, MMS, stated that “Changes in the quality of our air may not cause noticeable effects for decades; consequently the improvements in creating air quality models obtained from this cooperative agreement will assist researchers in studying the effects of various emissions released into the atmosphere.” Even more, as a result of these studies, future air quality modeling planned by the States and National Regional Planning Organizations, responsible for State Implementation Plans (SIP’s) will also benefit from this partnership.

For twenty years UAH has been a leader in developing modeling techniques for using satellite data and has a significant history in carrying out atmospheric science investigations in air quality. Much of this research has been in partnership with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Earth Science Department in the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) Huntsville, Alabama.

The Minerals Management Service is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation’s oil, natural gas, and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf in federal offshore waters. The agency also collects, accounts for, and disburses mineral revenues from federal and American Indian lands. MMS disbursed more than $8 billion in fiscal year 2003 and more than $135 billion since the agency was created in 1982. Nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund annually for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands.