AERMOD/CALPUFF/CALMET

AERMOD

AERMOD is steady-state plume model that incorporates air dispersion based on planetary boundary layer turbulence structure and scaling concepts, including treatment of both surface and elevated sources, and both simple and complex terrain. It was originally written for DOS.

There are several versions of AERMOD installed on the system that you can use. Run the following module command to see which versions are available:

module avail aermod

There is an example case setup and ready to run. To see how, run the following command:

module help aermod/14134

Here’s a sample PBS script that you can use to run AERMOD:

#PBS -l nodes=1:red:ppn=16
module load aermod
cd $PBS_O_WORKDIR
cp testprt2.inp aermod.inp
aermod.exe
If you’re used to running in DOS or Windows, you should be aware that LINUX is case-sensitive whereas Windows is not.

You should rename all your input files to use only lowercase characters. For example, if your input file is called AERMOD.INP, you should rename it to aermod.inp instead. The aermod module includes the lc command. This command will rename your files to use lowercase for you. For example:

$ lc AERMOD.INP ERRORS.OUT
`AERMOD.INP' -> `aermod.inp'
`ERRORS.OUT' -> `errors.out'

 

CALPUFF/CALMET

Background

There are many geophysical data preprocessors and meteorological data preprocessors and postprocessors available for CALMET and CALPUFF output files. These pre/postprocessors typically run in MS Window’s environments. We recommend running the bulk of your models (CALPUFF and CALMET) using our service, then downloading the output files for pre/post on your workstation or PC.

In order to use multiple CPUs, it is possible to model sources in separate CALPUFF runs and the output files can be combined using CALSUM. Several instances of CALPUFF can run simultaneously using sources pre-divided into groups. Each group would use one processor core. Similarly, CALMET can be divided into separate time frames, for example 1 month, for each processor core.  For more information see CALPUFF FAQs Answers at the TRC website. Your file directory is visible to all compute nodes in the cluster so you can use multiple nodes at the same time and they will all write output files to the location you specify.

Windows vs. Linux

When using MS Windows plain text files with Linux, you may need to convert the file to remove line break characters that are not recognized by the Linux operating system.  Use the command “dos2unix” to convert the file. Below is an example:

[16:38 vanw@sci ~]$ dos2unix input.file output.file

Additional information about this command can be found here.

Loading the CALPUFF/CALMET Modules

Both the EPA approved and the latest version of CALPUFF is available.  There are several modules, but two important ones are:

CALPUFF – which loads the latest version of calpuff, calmet, calpost. These are 64-bit optimized versions.
CALPUFF-EPA – this loads the EPA versions of the same. This is 64-bit, but no optimizations.

[user@sci ~]$ module help CALPUFF

----------- Module Specific Help for 'CALPUFF/7.2.1' ---------------

        Name:           CALPUFF
        Version:        7.2.1
        Installed:      Fri May 26 15:05:36 UTC 2017
        Note:   This is *NOT* the EPA-Approved Version
        Note:   See the Knowledge Base for more info on CALPUFF/CALMET


[user@sci ~]$ module help CALPUFF-EPA

----------- Module Specific Help for 'CALPUFF-EPA/5.8.5' ----------

        Name:           CALPUFF-EPA
        Version:        5.8.5
        Installed:      Fri May 26 15:14:08 UTC 2017
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