Only Four Spots Left in March AERMOD Course in Toronto. Register Now!

The 2-day AERMOD course in Toronto on March 27-28, 2008, announced last month is almost sold out. Act quickly to attend; please contact us at training@weblakes.com or check the Upcoming Courses section on our website to register.

New Software Releases

AUSTAL View™ Version 5.0 Released

Lakes Environmental is proud to announce the release of AUSTAL View Version 5.0 on January 28, 2008. This version includes support for the use of multi-core (multi-processor) compatible model executables, allowing for the use of up to 8 multi-processors in a single-machine. For an extensive list of the changes and new options to AUSTAL View, please see the latest release notes available on our website.

SLAB View™ Version 3.0 Ready for Release Next Week

Lakes Environmental is proud to announce it will release SLAB View Version 3.0 on February 21, 2008. Along with new graphical options and annotation tools, we have integrated SLAB 3D into the SLAB View package. For an extensive list of the changes and new options to SLAB View, please see the latest release notes available on our website.

If you are currently in maintenance for either AUSTAL View or SLAB View and did not receive an email regarding the update, please contact us at support@weblakes.com. If you are a user of either AUSTAL View or SLAB View but are no longer in maintenance, contact us at info@weblakes.com for appropriate pricing information for your maintenance renewal.

Congratulations to our EUEC Conference Draw Winner!

Mr. Ryan Freedman, Mrs. Julie Swatson, and the rest of the Lakes Environmental team would like to thank the organizers of the EUEC 2008 Conference in Tucson AZ, and everyone who stopped by our booth.
The winner of the draw for a free copy of ISC-AERMOD View™ was Mr. Allen Dittenhoefer from Enviroplan Consulting. We would like to thank all of the entrants to the draw.

Lakes Environmental at GLOBE 2008!

Lakes Environmental will be attending GLOBE 2008 in Vancouver, BC from March 12-14, 2008. See us at booth 1520 for demonstrations and information about our products, as well as your own chance to win a free copy of ISC-AERMOD View! For more information about GLOBE 2008, please click here

Lakes Environmental Closed for New Ontario Family Day Holiday

The Ontario Government recently announced a new holiday, Family Day. This year, the holiday will fall on February 18^th, 2008, and Lakes Environmental's offices will be closed. If you have any pressing needs during that time, please email us at support@weblakes.com and we will contact you February 19^th, 2008 when we re-open.

We’ve set a number of training dates for 2008, with additional courses to be announced soon! Be sure to register in advance; spots are limited.

AERMOD Courses

For more information on the above courses, such as registration information, location, and course outlines, please visit our web site: www.weblakes.com/course.

AERMOD Output Types

Part 3: Less-used Files

In this modeling tip, we will continue to look at the different types of outputs available in the US EPA AERMOD model. This tip will consider the final 2 output files in this series, which tend to be used less frequently as they are suited to more specific purposes:

• TOXX files (TOXXFILE)
• Rank files (RANKFILE)

Example Project

In order to illustrate the different output files, we will again consider a simple example project. There are 4 receptors in the project and we are measuring the 8-hour average over 2 days (6 values at each receptor).

The calculated concentrations (in µg/m3) are as follows:

TOXX Files (TOXXFILE)

The TOXX file reports occurrences of concentrations that exceed a user specified value. This is the same information that is provided by the threshold violation file (see January Modeling Tip), except that it is an unformatted file structured specifically for use in the TOXX model component of TOXST.

The syntax in the input file to create a TOXX file is as follows:

Where:

Aveper = the averaging period to be considered
Cutoff = the user specified threshold in g/m3 (regardless of the input and output units)
Filnam = the name of file that will be created.
Funit (optional) = input that assigns a file unit to the file; this option is for advanced users only.

As the file is unformatted, we cannot show a sample here. For further details on the structure of the file, please refer to the US EPA’s AERMOD User’s Guide and Addendum (available at https://www.epa.gov/scramdispersion_prefrec.htm).

Rank files (RANKFILE)

The Rank file outputs ranked values specifically for use in quantile-quantile (Q-Q) plots. In order to generate a Rank file, the Maximum Values Table option (see December ’07 Modeling Tip) must be selected. The Rank file is different from the Maximum Values Table in that it does not report concentrations that occurred on the same date and time; only the highest value from each date and time may be present in the Rank file.

The syntax in the input file to create a Rank file is as follows:

Aveper, Filnam and Funit are all as described above. Hinum is the number of high values to be reported in the Rank File, and must be less than or equal to the number of high values reported in the Maximum Values Table.

Example:

To report the 3 highest maximum values for our project (although you would typically report many more):

The resulting Rank file would look like this:

As you can see, the three overall maximum concentrations are ranked and the time and date at which they occurred are given. The receptor location and type is also indicated.

In this case, the three highest concentrations occurred at different times, but if two of the values had occurred at the same time, only the higher of the two would have been included in the Rank file.

Notes

• For users of ISC-AERMOD View, the output files described above can be easily created through the Output Pathway under Output Files.
• Evaluation Files and Season/Hour Files will be covered at a later date, as these files require a more in-depth description.

Remember: We are currently accepting submissions for the Monthly Modeling Tip that appears in our newsletters.  If you have a modeling tip that may benefit a variety of people, please send it to us at support@weblakes.com. Your name and the name of your organization will appear below the tip providing you with greater exposure.

Ancient Trees Give Clues to Climate Change

February 8, 2008 - PUERTO BLEST, Argentina (Reuters) - On the shores of lake Nahuel Huapi, in the wild mountains of Argentina's Patagonia, live some of the world's most ancient trees.

Known in Spanish as the alerce, the Patagonian cypress grows extremely slowly, but can reach heights over 50 meters (165 feet) and live for 2,000 years or more, putting some of them among the oldest living things on earth.

For scientists who come from around the world to study them, the alerces give an exciting snapshot of years past.
Read Article

Court KOs Administration's Emissions Policy

February 8, 2008 - WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court struck down a Bush administration policy exempting power plants from certain environmental regulations. The court said the policy was unlawful.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit negated a rule known as cap-and-trade. That policy allows power plants that fail to meet emission targets to buy credits from plants that did, rather than having to install their own mercury emissions controls. The rule was to go into effect in 2010.
Read Article

The Masdar Initiative - Greening the Persian Gulf

February 6, 2008 – VANCOUVER (GLOBE-Net) - On January 21st, 2008, at the World Future Energy Summit held in Abu Dhabi, the capital and second most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi unveiled the Masdar Initiative, a plan to invest upwards of $15 billion to establish an international clean technology research centre, the world’s first carbon neutral city, and projects focused on hydrogen, solar, wind power and hydrogen fuel cells. This initiative could make the fossil fuel rich region a global leader in renewable energy solutions.

This article, the first in a GLOBE-Net Series on "Greening the Gulf", investigates the challenges facing the Persian Gulf region as it strives to become a more environmentally sustainable. The series will examine such issues as water management, renewable energy, and the where the region might stand in a ‘post-oil’ world.
Read Article

Is Carbon Capture and Storage Coming to Canada?

February 4, 2008 – OTTAWA (GLOBE-Net) - According to a report just released by a government-commissioned panel, Canadian governments generally should spend close to $2 billion to encourage carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The report echoes recent plans by the Government of Alberta to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions in this manner. Unfortunately real world testing of CCS technologies, such as a project now underway in Weyburn Saskatchewan, indicates that such systems may not be foolproof, though they certainly will be expensive.
Read Article

China Asks for More Leeway on Greenhouse Gas

February 4, 2008 - CANBERRA (Reuters) - China said on Tuesday it should be given more leeway over its rising greenhouse gas emissions as it was a world manufacturer and exporter, benefiting people at home and internationally.

"China is a manufacturing country. China produces lots of goods which are not only used in China, but all over the world," Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told reporters in Australia. Read Article

Here are a few conferences and trade shows coming up in the next few months:

*** Lakes is attending: GLOBE 2008, CANECT, and AWMA