Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Bazil
Introduction to SMOKE is a 3-day course that uses lectures and hands-on computer exercises to teach students how to configure and run the SMOKE programs and to examine the input and output files from the software. The class introduces students to the basics of air pollutant emissions modeling and how to process emissions data through SMOKE. Students are guided through exercises to inspect the various input files for SMOKE, including emission inventory data, chemical speciation data, temporal profiles, and spatial surrogates. The hands-on exercises are structured around processing the different types of inventories with SMOKE: area/nonpoint, on-road mobile with MOVES, point, and biogenics. The hands-on exercises also include labs on merging multiple source categories together and using SMOKE to generate customized QA reports.
At the completion of this course, students will be able to configure, and run the SMOKE programs. They will possess the knowledge and practical experience needed to prepare input files for SMOKE and to produce emissions input files for the CMAQ and CAMx air quality models.
Introduction to CMAQ is a 2-day course that uses lectures and hands-on computer exercises to teach students how to run the CMAQ programs and examine input and output files from the software. The class covers topics including CMAQ terminology, how to set up and reconfigure different modeling domains, nested simulations, and multi-day simulations. Problem-solving exercises challenge the students to integrate the lessons that they had previously learned in the class to complete more advanced modeling tasks.
At the completion of this course, students will be able to download, configure, compile, and run the CMAQ programs. They will possess the knowledge and practical experience needed to prepare input files for CMAQ and to produce CMAQ output.
The syllabus is shown below to highlight the range of topics covered during the course. The course starts with a lecture on the basics of SMOKE and CMAQ, including an overview of air quality modeling, an introduction to the SMOKE and CMAQ programs, and a description of the course structure. The Hands-on laboratories have each student working on a computer pre-loaded with the course training materials. The labs focus on configuring and building the CMAQ programs, examining the input and output files, and running the programs to give students practical experience using CMAQ. The advanced topics lecture during day 2 of the training provides an overview of modeling diagnostic and evaluation topics, such as sensitivity modeling and statistical performance evaluation. The class concludes with a problem solving lab that emulates a real-world modeling task. The students are presented with a set of modeling data and a brief description of the modeling task. Where the previous labs included step-by-step instructions on how to set up and run the different programs, in the Problem Solving Case Study each student is challenged to run CMAQ with help from the lessons learned in the previous labs, the instructor, and their fellow students.
BH has 17 years of atmospheric chemistry experience related to emissions inventory development and processing, air quality laboratory and field monitoring, and grid-based air quality modeling applications. He is the senior software engineer for SMOKE. BH also has participated in developing several programs and tools that interface various 3rd party source-specific emissions models through the SMOKE, including the U.S. EPA MOVES model for onroad mobile sources, the U.S. EPA NONROAD model for nonroad mobile sources, the Satellite Mapping Automated Reanalysis Tool for Fire Incident Reconciliation (SMARTFIRE) framework for wildfire emissions, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System (EDMS) and Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT) for airport emissions. BH is the co-developer and maintainer of the Introduction to SMOKE class.
Dr. Arunachalam, Research Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is acting Director of the Community Modeling and Analysis System (CMAS) Center, an EPA-funded center hosted at UNC-CH since 2003. Dr. Arunachalam has over 25 years of experience with multiple generations of local and regional-scale air quality models, with focus on developing and applying them for understanding atmospheric chemistry and source attribution. His recent research interests are at the intersection of emissions, air quality and public health with a strong emphasis on providing the scientific basis for air quality management, through developing both reduced-form and comprehensive modeling systems. Dr. Arunachalam leads the air quality modeling activities for the CMAS Center since 2003, and has developed and taught the CMAQ training class for a global audience. Dr. Arunachalam is also an Adjunct Professor at the UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health’s Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering.
Ms. Adams has over 10 years of experience in model applications, model evaluation, and debugging support to developers of air quality modeling systems. Ms. Adams prepares model documentation, and performs web-based software management, software installation and testing across multiple platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows) to support public release of the Visualization Environment for Rich Data Interpretation (VERDI) tool. Ms. Adams has installed the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE) training software, data and ancillary software tools to a compute server on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for an online SMOKE training course. Ms. Adams is experienced with using Python, QGIS, Panoply, IDV, VERDI, the Atmospheric Model Evaluation Tool (AMET), and Ncview to visualize and analyze NetCDF data from the CMAQ modeling system and comparing the results to data from the observational networks. She supports the CMAS Statistical and Graphical Analysis Tools training course by preparing, testing and porting input data and scripts for VERDI and AMET to the Virtual Computing Laboratory environment, preparing and delivering classroom lectures, and providing hands-on training support to students.
The upcoming special courses for introduction to SMOKE and CMAQ classes will have 20 spaces in each class. When enrollment is full, we will no longer accept applications for the class. The class is subject to cancellation if there are not enough registered students.
A minimum of 10 trainees must be registered to conduct a training.
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For more information on CMAS Special Courses, please contact Brian Naess at 919-966-9925 or email cmas@unc.edu.