WAQS 2014 Modeling Platform

Overview

The WAQS will solicit bids to perform photochemical grid modeling (PGM) for the year 2014 using the Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) and the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. The selected modeling contractor will develop a modeling protocol to specify PMG configurations for base and selected future year modeling scenarios. A list of modeling inputs that are currently available on the IWDW provided below. This wiki will be updated as 2014 WAQS modeling efforts progress, and when additional data for the 2014 platform are added to the IWDW.

Emissions

Oil and Gas Emissions Inventories

Base year (2014) WAQS oil and gas emissions inventories for 14 development basins in the intermountain west. Inventories represent the 2014 annual time period. Inventoried pollutants are NOx, VOC, CO, SO2, and PM10. Greenhouse gas (GHG) pollutant inventories, i.e. CO2, CH4 and N2O, are included for some source sectors in the Permian San Juan and Basin inventories.

2014 NEI v2

The EPA released the final version of the 2014 National Emissions Inventory (2014 NEIv2) in July 2018. The IWDW provides resources to examine EPA's NEI data. The revised base and future year emissions will be used for WAQS photochemical modeling in the intermountain west.

Meteorology

WAQS 2014 WRF

The WAQS contracted UNC Chapel Hill to simulate 2014 meteorology using the Weather Research Forecast (WRF Version 3.6.1) Advanced Research WRF (WRF-ARW, or WRF) for the 2014 calendar year with a 36 km continental U.S. (CONUS), 12 km western U.S. (WESTUS), and 4 km western state domain (WSD). More information on WAQS 2014 meteorological modeling is provided in the WAQS WRF 2014 MPE Document.

EPA 2014 WRF

EPA contracted UNC Chappel Hill to simulate 2014 meteorology using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF Version 3.8) at a 12-km horizontal resolution for the continental United States (CONUS). The WRF meteorological fields were processed using the Meteorology Chemistry Interface Process (MCIP) to generate Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ)-ready input files. Additionally, the 2014 WRF meteorological fields were processed using the Mesoscale Model Interface Tool (MMIF) to generate input files for dispersion models. EPA WRF 2014 MPE Document.

Boundary Conditions

GEOS-Chem

GEOS-Chem is a global 3-D chemical transport model (CTM) for atmospheric composition driven by meteorological input from the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS). 2014 WAQS AQ modeling will use GEOS-Chem output for estimating boundary conditions. EPA's 2014 GEOS-Chem output are available on the IWDW.

Air Quality Modeling