AERMOD VERSUS CTDMPLUS: A CASE STUDY

The American Meteorological Society / U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (AMS/EPA) Regulatory Model Improvement Committee (AERMIC) has updated the Industrial Source Complex (ISC) air dispersion model. The AERMIC model (AERMOD) is capable of predicting concentration in simple terrain and elevated terrain. The complex terrain capabilities of AERMOD are of particular interest since the U. S. EPA's refined complex terrain model, Complex Terrain Dispersion Model Plus Algorithms for Unstable Conditions (CTDMPLUS), requires an extensive and sophisticated array of input data. Currently, AERMOD has been released for public review and comment and is slated to be proposed as the regulatory replacement for the Industrial Source Complex (ISC3) Model by the end of 1999. This research project will look at a comparison between the predicted concentrations at complex terrain receptors. Specifically, one-hour maximum concentrations will be compared, as well as the terrain and meteorological data preprocessing capabilities of each model.