AerScreen for Windows 4.03 is out

Posted by Dmitriy Shnayder on Monday, October 3rd, 2022 in Newsletters

What’s Happening Now

EPA News

PM2.5/Ozone Permit Modeling Guidance – EPA’s long-awaited final version of its Guidance for Ozone and Fine Particulate Matter Permit Modeling has been released. This is a successor to 2014’s Guidance for PM2.5 Permit Modeling. You can download it here. On August 11, 2022, EPA presented a webinar on what’s in this guidance and you can view the slides from it here.

Model Clearinghouse Memos – The EPA Model Clearinghouse released several concurrence memos recently related to the use of the AERCOARE-AERMOD system for addressing impacts for Outer Continental Shelf permitting. These memos can be found in the Model Clearinghouse Information Storage and Retrieval System (MCHISRS).

Regional, State and Local Dispersion Modelers’ Workshop – Presentation slides from this annual workshop (held July 12, 2022) can be found on SCRAM.

Conferences and Workshops

CAPCA Fall Workshop and Forum – The Carolinas Air Pollution Control Association (CAPCA) will be holding its annual Fall Workshop and Forum October 12‑14, 2022 at The Hilton in Myrtle Beach, SC. For more information, go to 2022 Fall | CAPCA.

TCEQ Advanced Air Permitting Workshop – After a couple of years off due to COVID-19, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will be holding its Advanced Air Permitting Workshop October 18, 2022 at the University of Texas Commons Conference Center in Austin, Texas. Check here for more information including registration, agenda, etc.

Several AWMA local/state chapters also have upcoming meetings:

60th Annual PNWIS Conference
PNWIS Annual Conference (pnwis.org)
October 11-13, 2022 ● Coeur d’Alene, ID

Georgia Chapter Annual Regulatory Conference
Welcome (gaawma.org)
October 18 ● Atlanta, GA

West Coast Section Annual Conference
West Coast Section of AWMA – Meeting/Event Information (wcsawma.org)
October 20, 2022 ● Online

Louisiana Section Annual Fall Conference
2022 Conference – Louisiana Air & Waste Management Association (la-awma.org)
October 26-27, 2022 ● Baton Rouge, LA

If your company, organization, agency, state, etc. has an upcoming modeling or air quality-related event (virtual or otherwise) and you’d like it publicized in Providence/Oris Notes, please send that information to us at info@providenceoris.com, and we’ll be happy to include it.

BEEST Suite

BEEST 12.09 is now out and includes the following:

Incorporates AERMOD 22112 executable
AerMet GUI has been updated to run AERMET 22112

We presented a webinar on the new features in this version of BEEST on August 19, 2022. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

As always, users in maintenance can download the most recent version of BEEST from Support → Software Updates.

Go BEEST Mode face masks are here! These stylish and functional masks will be the perfect complement to your Go BEEST Mode t-shirt. These are washable/reusable and are a one size fits all. So get yours today by sending your request to info@providenceoris.com.

And of course, we still have plenty of Go BEEST Mode t-shirts, too! You can also request one of those by emailing us at info@providenceoris.com.

AerScreen for Windows

AerScreen for Windows 4.03 is now out. This update has the following enhancements:

Runs AERMOD 22112
Includes the latest version of Terrain Files Converter

Users in maintenance can download the most recent version of AerScreen for Windows from Support → Software Updates.

Professional CalPuff

Note to all Professional CalPuff users:

We are sorry to inform you that Providence/Oris has decided to end our support for Professional CalPuff. It was no longer available for purchase after May 31, 2022. We will continue to honor our support agreement until the end of your current maintenance period. If you have any questions for us about the program or any installation issues, we will be happy to help address these items while your maintenance period is active. After that, you may continue to use Professional CalPuff indefinitely without any additional maintenance fees, but also without any support from us. We will be able to supply new license keys in the future for customers who had active licenses as of May 31, 2022.

AERMOD Wizard

AERMOD Wizard 1.07 is now out. This update has the following enhancements:

Allows you to download and process monitoring data for NOx
Allows you to download EPA monitoring data published in November 2021
Displays elevations for surface and upper air stations in the pop-up window
Warns you when data collection frequency changes within a monitoring data file
Allows you to set a custom radius when drawing circles around met stations, sources and monitors
Adds the ability to display sources from the National Emissions Inventory

The last one is very significant, as it allows you to quickly calculate emission totals within a defined radius of both an emissions source and a candidate ambient monitor. This becomes very useful when trying to identify a monitor for background purposes.

AERMOD Wizard 1.08 will be out soon and will include the ability to:

Download EPA monitoring data published in June 2022
Download raw meteorological data for Alaska and Hawaii
Export NEI sources, meteorological stations and monitors to Google Earth

Users in maintenance can download the most recent version of AERMOD Wizard from Support → Software Updates.

If you have suggestions for enhancements to any of our modeling software products, please let us know and we’ll do our best to incorporate them into the software.

Modeling Tip of the Month

In the air dispersion modeling world, one of the critical inputs is the determination of whether or not a location or source is considered urban or rural. Section 7.2.2.1 of EPA’s Guideline on Air Quality Models prescribes an approach based on the Auer land use analysis. Basically, you draw a 3,000‑meter radius circle around the source or area of interest and determine whether the land use (based on Auer categories I1, I2, C1, R2, and R3) is greater than 50%. If it is, you categorize the source as urban. AERSURFACE offers a way to do this quickly and easily.

1. If you’re using BEEST Suite, open AerMet.

2. On the MP 2 tab, select Annual for the Primary Surface Characteristics Frequency and One for the Primary Wind Sectors. You can also select Seasonal or Monthly frequency and Twelve 30‑degree wind sectors.

3. On the Setup tab, select Run AerSurface under Site Characteristics and go to the AS 1 tab.

4. On the AS 1 tab, click the “Input Files” button and select the (preferably 2016) Land Cover, Impervious and Canopy input files for AERSURFACE.

5. Click the OK button to go back to the AS 1 tab. Enter the path and filename for the output file for AERSURFACE.

6. Under Primary Location, enter the location of your source (longitude is negative in the western hemisphere).

7. For the climatological parameters, you can select the default values: Average for soil moisture, No for Winter Season Snow Cover and No for Arid.

8. Click the “Other Options” button. Under Calculation Method, select Default method and change the surface roughness length radius to 3.0 km. Under Non-Airport Wind Sectors, select None if the source is at or near an airport.

9. Click the OK button to go back to the AS 1 tab and click the “Run AerSurface” button.

10. You will see a dialog box with the message “Import was successful”. Click the OK button to close the dialog box.

11. Open the aersurface.log output file. Scroll down to view a table of land use categories versus wind sectors. Import this table into Excel or another spreadsheet program.

12. Notice that aersurface.log lists the number of pixels associated with each combination of land use category and wind sector.

13. Within the spreadsheet, sum the pixels across all wind sectors for each row to generate a total number of pixels for each land use category. After that, sum the total number of pixels for all land use categories (the grand total) at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

14. Create another column to the right of the totals for each land use category. Divide each land use category’s total pixels by the grand total to calculate a percentage.

15. For urban determination, sum the percentages associated with categories 22 (Developed, Low Intensity), 23 (Developed, Medium Intensity) and 24 (Developed, High Intensity). If this sum is greater than 50%, the entire area is urban. Otherwise, the entire area is rural/non-urban.

We want to note that many folks use our classes as credit toward professional engineer continuing education requirements. Check with your state’s licensing board or the National Society of Professional Engineers (see here or here) for more information on what is required.

AERMOD Modeling for Permits

Our next AERMOD Modeling for Permits class will be December 6-7, 2022 and will be online. If you are wanting to get started in modeling, then this class is for you!

To register for AERMOD Modeling for Permits, click here.

Advanced AERMOD

Our next Advanced AERMOD class will be December 8-9, 2022 and will also be online.

Advanced AERMOD covers topics that are near and dear to modelers, such as:

NAAQS modeling for 1-hour NO2, 1-hour SO2 and 24-hour PM2.5 (including MaxDCont Viewer)
Meteorological data processing with AERMET/AERMINUTE/AERSURFACE
Changes related to the new Appendix W (Guideline on Air Quality Models)
MAXIFILE and ARRAY2 processing
AERMOD Wizard and its uses

To register for Advanced AERMOD, click here.

On-demand Meteorological Data Processing webinar

We are about to launch a new training option – on-demand webinars. The first of these to be released will be “Meteorological Data Processing for AERMOD”. Look for it at www.providenceoris.com starting this fall.

Don’t forget, if our schedule of classes doesn’t mesh with your schedule, or if you have several people that need to be trained at once, contact us about setting up your own onsite or online class.

2023 Class Schedule

We have tentatively set up training class dates for 2023. They are:

AERMOD Modeling for Permits
February 21-22, 2023
May 9-10, 2023
August 22-23, 2023
December 12-13, 2023

Advanced AERMOD
February 23-24, 2023
May 11-12, 2023
August 24-25, 2023
December 14-15, 2023

At this point, the February classes will probably be online, with the sites for the rest to be determined.

BeestXpress

In addition to our newer, faster processors, BeestXpress now runs AERMOD 22112.

If you’ve never used our super-fast BeestXpress before, now is the time. We have released an on-demand webinar that steps you through the process of setting up an account and sending off your first BeestXpress run. You can view the webinar here. New BeestXpress users can complete their first run absolutely FREE. Instructions about receiving the free run are given at the end of the webinar.

BeestXpress users have some great system enhancements to work with:

The “Job Details” webpage now displays the pollutant being modeled;
The “Job Details” webpage now displays run progress for MAXDCONT calculations;
Modeling runs with multiple partitions now include a combined AERMOD input file (*.DTA) in the output .ZIP file;
Added an option to the “Submit Job” webpage that affects modeling runs with multiple partitions: the intermediate output files created by each partition can be omitted from the output .ZIP file
The “Job Search” webpage now includes the option to search by project number
Users have access to up to 99 partitions per AERMOD run

To date, BeestXpress has processed over 500,000 AERMOD runs.

BeestXpress users can log on at www.beestxpress.com to take advantage of our AERMOD “force multiplier”. That AERMOD run that might have taken a day or two to process on your desktop computer can finish in an hour or less on BeestXpress. When time is money, BeestXpress is the best modeling return on investment there is!

Meteorological Data Processing Services

Do you need AERMOD-ready meteorological data? If so, we can help! Whether it’s running national weather service data or onsite monitor met data through the AERMET/AERMINUTE system, Providence has the background, know-how, and experience to have your data processed and ready for you ASAP. If you’d like more information, contact us at info@providenceoris.com or jamesred@providenceeng.com.

Consulting Solutions

One thing that we’re very proud of is the depth and range of our modeling experience and expertise. The kinds of air quality models we’ve used include all types, ranging from simple screening tools like SCREEN and AERSCREEN to plume models like ISC and AERMOD to CalPuff. The types of analyses include basic Significant Impact Level, NAAQS, PSD increment consumption, Class I analyses, air toxics and SIP attainment demonstrations. So, we’ve seen it all. To that end, should you or your clients need additional modeling assistance or just a second set of eyes to QA or peer review your modeling (ranging from initial protocol up to final submission), we stand ready to help. Feel free to contact us at (512) 258-8855, (828) 628-0634 or info@providenceoris.com.

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