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Modeling

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Collaborative Wiki Main Page

Inventory Collaborative Google Drive Link

Members

Co-leads: Zac Adelman (LADCO), Eric Zalewsky (NY DEC)

Ron Thomas (TCEQ), Doug Boyer (TCEQ), Weining Zhao (TCEQ), Zarena Post (TCEQ), Miranda Kosty (TCEQ), Jeff Vukovich (EPA OAQPS), Alison Eyth (EPA OAQPS), Caroline Farkas (EPA OAQPS), Winston Hao (NY DEC), Jeongran Yun (NY DEC), Michael Woodman (MD Dept Env), Tom Moore (WESTAR/WRAP), Mark Hixon (CARB), Tim Allen (US FWS), Margaret McCourtney (MN PCA), Mark Janssen (LADCO), Jennifer Liljegren (US EPA Region 5), Kathleen Errington (NH DES), Kelly Petersen (LA DEQ), Jin-sheng Lin (VA DEQ), Shan He (NJ DEP), Susan McCusker (MARAMA), Kristen Stumpf (VA DEQ), Jim Boylan (GA DNR), Byeong Kim (GA DNR), Di Tian (GA DNR), KJ Liao (GA DNR), Wei Zhang (ID DEQ), Stephen Lachance (MI DEQ), Tom Shanley (MI DEQ), Shawn McClure (CIRA), Rodger Ames (CIRA)

Call Schedule

Date/Time: 4th Tuesday of the month @ 3:00 p.m. Eastern.

Call in number: 646-749-3122

Access Code: 901-602-909# (no audio pin)

Workplan

The national Emissions Collaborative Modeling Workgroup is responsible for testing and preparing the data platforms created by each of the inventory sector workgroups for use in air quality modeling. Along with preparing the data for modeling, this workgroup will prepare a modeling platform distribution package that includes all of data, software, and documentation needed to prepare base and future year emissions for air quality modeling simulations.

The primary work areas for this group, with objectives for each area include:

Testing and Platform Development

  • Format Checks: Check that the inventory and ancillary data formats for the data produced by each sector workgroup will work with SMOKE (or other emissions processing tool)
  • Modeling Protocol: Establish a modeling protocol that defines a modeling domain and time period for testing the processing of the Collaborative data products
  • Data Collection: Collect and collate of the non-emissions data, such as WRF output, needed for processing the emissions through SMOKE
  • SMOKE Modeling: Run through SMOKE the data from each inventory sector and create air quality model-ready emissions for a test domain and time period
  • Data Validation: Work with the sector workgroup co-leads to compare the processed emissions with pre-SMOKE inventory summaries, and compare the processed data with SMOKE output from other, recent emissions modeling platforms (e.g., EPA's 2014v2 platform)

Platform Packaging

  • EMF Platform Development: Work with EPA OAQPS to create an Emissions Modeling Framework modeling platform with the Collaborative 2016 (and future year) emissions data
  • Platform Distribution Package: Create a modeling platform distribution of the Collaborate base and future year emissions with the same level of completeness and documentation as EPA developed for their "EN" modeling platform
  • Distribution Package Testing: Test the script-based platform distribution to ensure that users can process these data outside of the EMF
  • Platform Customization: Develop and document an approach for substituting inventory sectors in the platform distribution package. User's need to be able to fairly easily substitute sector versions (e.g., alpha vs beta for nonpoint, or MEGAN vs BEIS for biogenics) to create customized emissions platforms.
  • Quality Assurance: Make sure totals equals the sum of the parts

Documentation and Evaluation

  • Sector Workgroup Feedback: Review the documentation of the data products from each sector workgroup and provide comments to the workgroup co-leads on where improvements or additional information are needed
  • Collaborative Platform Documentation: Ensure that the platform distribution packages have sufficient documentation to enable new users of the packages to install the accompanying data/software, and process the data through SMOKE.
  • Air Quality Modeling: Need for an objective evaluation of the emissions by running through air quality model and comparison to obs
  • User Feedback: How can we get feedback on different studies that use these data; different configurations, performance evaluations, etc.; put out a best practices guidance for using that data that includes a request for information back to the collaborative

Modeling Workgroup Meetings

February 26, 2019

Attendees Jeff Vukovich (EPA OAQPS), Alison Eyth (EPA OAQPS), Caroline Farkas (EPA OAQPS), Michael Woodman (MD Dept Env), Tom Moore (WESTAR/WRAP), Mark Hixon (CARB), Tim Allen (US FWS), Margaret McCourtney (MN PCA), Mark Janssen (LADCO), Kathleen Errington (NH DES), Jin-sheng Lin (VA DEQ), Shan He (NJ DEP), Susan McCusker (MARAMA), Kristen Stumpf (VA DEQ), Jim Boylan (GA DNR), Byeong Kim (GA DNR), Stephen Lachance (MI DEQ), Shawn McClure (CIRA), Rodger Ames (CIRA), Eric, Winston, Jeong, Doug

Agenda

  1. Discussion on the state of the 2016 beta platform documentation and any pressing needs in advance of the release; how can this WG participate in the review of the documentation?
  2. Summary of the evaluation plots hosted @ LADCO; has anyone looked through these? any interesting features to point out?
  3. Summary of the OAQPS plan for 2016beta platform MPE
  4. Collaborative Platform Issues tracking @ CMAS
  5. Set priorities for reviewing/QA of the 2016 beta platform; what should we be focusing on for improving the v1 platform?

Call Notes

Discussion on the state of the 2016 beta platform documentation

  • Documentation reviews:
    • MEGAN - mark
    • BEIS - NY
    • Onroad - Steve MI
    • Rail - Steve MI
    • Nonroad - NY
  • C1/C2 & C3 - Zac
  • RWC - Zac
  • nonpoint
  • nonpoint afdust
  • nonpoint ag
  • nonpoint oil & gas - Tom
  • Can/Mexico - Tom
  • point oil & gas - Tom
  • point fires ag + wf&rx - Tom
  • point non-EGU
  • point IPM
  • point ERTAC EGU - Eric NY

  • Host documentation on VIEWS wiki server
  • Release announcement Friday, send to states, MJOs, national report out call

Summary of the evaluation plots hosted @ LADCO

  • Analysis of results
  • Canada and Mexico plots: look at the gridded maps

Summary of the OAQPS plan for 2016beta platform MPE

Collaborative Platform Issues tracking @ CMAS

  • Q&A forum for data platform
  • Approached by contractors looking to review the beta platform, need to incorporate feedback
  • Not a regulatory effort so don't need a NODA, but need to track feedback in a systematic way
  • Can sign up as a watcher for specific items

Set priorities for reviewing/QA of the 2016 beta platform

  • Review ancillary data
  • LADCO will process these data on 4 and 1.33 km domains, looking at issues and communicating back to Collaborative
  • What will be included in the platform? What data and software will be distributed?
    • Similar to the EN platform; will be posted by the IWDW; will be able to download directly from the IWDW; will include SMOKE inputs, pre-merged outputs, merged SMOKE outputs, and scripts
    • All non-point sources processed on 12US1 domain, EPA runs all sectors on the 12US1 grid, merge together and then window to the 12US2 domains; pre-merged emissions are all on the 12US1 domain
    • Point source files for the 12US1 domain work for the 12US2 domains
    • How is the 36US3 domain used? Hemispheric provided BCs to 36US3, then 36US3 to create BCs for 12US2; some may be interested to running 36 because it has few total cells than the 12-km domains
    • How long does it take to obtain the files from the IWDW server?

January 22, 2019

Attendees

Byeong and Jim (GA), Jin and Kristen (VA), Shan (NJ), Mark J and Zac (LADCO), Mark H (CARB), Ron (TCEQ), Shawn and Tom (CIRA/WRAP), Kathleen (NH), Kelly (LA), Eric (NY)

Agenda

  1. Review analysis products
  2. Review list of plots for documentation and figure out if additional efforts need to be made to complete the list
  3. Set priorities for reviewing/QA of the 2016 beta platform

Review Analysis Products Note that these are prototype analysis products because the future years (2023ff and 2028ff) are missing for several sectors: EGU Point, NonEGU Point, Nonpoint, O&G-Nonpoint, O&G-Point, Rail.

Call Notes

CIRA Interactive Web Site

  • MN: Filter by region: regions split by 1st round haze planning period; can this be updated?
    • Yes, need to coordinate with LADCO to make consistent with bar charts
    • Zac to follow up with Rodger @ CIRA
  • WESTAR/WRAP: need to include all states in axis labels, some plots are skipping axis labels and it's hard to decipher
  • WESTAR/WRAP: need to update platform names; call 2016ff beta, alpha, call 2011en 2011v6?
    • GA: there is utility in using the EPA platform names, if there is a rename should we have a key that translates the rename to a platform; seconded by NY and MN
    • When an MJO/state changes an EPA platform, do they rename it? Yes, they become a new platform when a change is made
    • Eric@NY to follow up with Rodger@CIRA with platform descriptions

LADCO Image Viewer with bar plots

  • Two types of bar plots created, grouped bars and stacked bars
  • Three comparison groups
    • 2016beta platform: 2016ff, 2023ff, 2028ff
    • base platforms (11v14v16): 2011en, 2014fd, 2016ff
    • future platforms (23v28): 2011-based 2023 & 2028, 2016-based 2023 & 2028
  • Regional aggregations
    • US: by pollutant, shows all of the platforms along the x-axis
    • Regional: by MJO and pollutant, shows comparison groups by MJO total
    • State: by MJO and pollutant, shows comparison groups by state in each MJO
    • County: by state and pollutant, shows comparison groups by county each state in each MJO
    • Grouped bars are organized by sector/pollutant
    • Stacked bars organized by pollutant
    • No county plots for stacked bars
    • Stacked bars include "free-Y" plots; standard panel plots have a Y-axis that is scaled to the largest value; the free-Y plots scale by each element in the panel; both types of plots created

GA DNR thematic maps

  • Base and future year county maps, with arithmetic and percentage differences
  • Counties with no data (no sources), shown as grey
  • Merged_PDF plots aggregate several plots into one file
  • PDF and PNG show single plots in one file

Proposed Plots

  • beta platform state summary: state annual total bar charts comparing the 2016, 2023, and 2028 beta emissions for CO, NOx, VOC, NH3, SO2, and PM2.5.
  • base year platform comparisons: state annual total bar charts comparing 2011, 2014 (if available), and 2016 beta for the same pollutants
  • projection year platform comparisons: state annual total bar charts comparing 2011-based 2023 and 2028 to 2016-beta 2023 and 2028, for the same pollutants
  • Thematic county maps: county annual total maps of 2011, 2016, 2023, 2028, 2011-2016 (or 2016/2011?)…also maps to highlight differences between the projections (i.e., 2011-based vs 2016 based projections)
  • comparisons across all sectors, as in total inventory charts. I like stacked bars, so maybe stacked bars with each segment representing an inventory sector, using similar comparisons as 1-3 above. I’d be interested to hear other ideas.

November 27, 2018

Attendees

Zac, Eric, Ron, Doug, Miranda, Jeff, Alison, Caroline, Winston, Jeongran, Michael, Tom M., Mark H., Margaret, Mark J., Jenny, Jin, Susan, Jim, Byeong, Wei, Trace, Tom S., Kevin

Agenda

  1. Roll
  2. Review October action items and call comments
  3. Review goals/objectives of this workgroup: no/limited modeling; review, improve, document EPA platform
  4. Brainstorm on tasks and workload distribution
  5. Next Steps

Call Notes

October Action Items

  • Jeff V.: Provide a list of the routine SMOKE reports that will come out of the EPA modeling platform; indication of when these could be available to this group
    • Sending a list of the reports they will create and put in a table to provide after the call; state, county, SCC reports for CAPS by sector; not inclined to create county-SCC report; unit level comparisons for point sources
    • Schedule: looking at wrapping up most of the sectors by mid-December; start providing before the holidays

  • Jeff V.: get an indication from EPA modelers if they are receptive to requests from this group for custom SMOKE reports
    • Yes, will create these reports

  • Jeff V.: request that the EPA 2016 beta modeling platform (scripts and data) be made available to this group early, possibly as sectors were ready
    • Pushing to get the beta platform out in bulk, not feasible to make data available while they're working in the middle of it

  • Workgroup membership: for WG members who weren't on this first call, review the notes and provide feedback to Zac & Eric; in particular consider our preliminary decision to not recreate a new modeling platform, but rather the use EPA 2016 beta platform and focus on the analysis of the data, improving the platform, and documentation
    • Need to get clarity on when modeling is done with these data; how will the collaborative create buy in to the process

Review goals/objectives of this workgroup: no/limited modeling; review, improve, document EPA platform

  • Can we make a case for changing the platform that would be manifested in the version 1.0 platform
    • EPA: if we find things with beta, we're hoping that they can be integrated into V1; looking to create a V1 in the spring time frame, can make refinements to sectors and packaging; historically have been receptive to the platform packaging
  • Nature of the platforms is that things won't stop after V1, need a long term approach for storing/housing getting the files, tracking updates, tracking errata
  • Key findings for this group will be to evaluate what's in beta and what's missing, what's left to be done
  • Others are requesting the platform, do we want to wait to release when the platform is done by EPA
    • Decision was made to wait until documentation is ready
    • Review will work best as we get this platform to people as soon as possible
    • Platforms will vary once there is a release as local changes are made
    • Try to set milestones that define what the different platform versions are
    • If we wait for the documentation, it won't be ready until February;
    • Documentation for individual sectors, not pulled together into a single uniform document
    • EPA releases to the collaborative as soon as the data are available, then to the general public as soon as the documentation are available
    • If documentation isn't available int he next month, we'll get pressure from outside groups
    • Could we release inventory components as their documentation are available? No, hoping that documentation is the reference point for each sector, and this workgroup will use that to determine if all of the pieces are there
    • Don't need formal documentation, meta data source of the data, how it was compiled is good to start
    • Are all of the sectors ready now? Most of them are and EPA has processed many of them, working through some glitches: fires, biogenic, EGU, nonpoint, nonpoint O&G, Canada
  • No major pushback to EPA putting the platform together
    • Will most people use EPAs platform as is, or will there be major changes to the scripts; NY will use EPA's scripts, maintain consistency across groups; LADCO will use EMF/EPA scripts; TX will use EPS

Brainstorm on tasks and workload distribution

October 23, 2018

Action Items

  • Jeff V.: Provide a list of the routine SMOKE reports that will come out of the EPA modeling platform; indication of when these could be available to this group
  • Jeff V.: get an indication from EPA modelers if they are receptive to requests from this group for custom SMOKE reports
  • Jeff V.: request that the EPA 2016 beta modeling platform (scripts and data) be made available to this group early, possibly as sectors were ready
  • Workgroup membership: for WG members who weren't on this first call, review the notes and provide feedback to Zac & Eric; in particular consider our preliminary decision to not recreate a new modeling platform, but rather the use EPA 2016 beta platform and focus on the analysis of the data, improving the platform, and documentation
    • TCEQ agrees. TCEQ will provide EI updates to EPA as expeditiously as possible.

Attendees

Zac (LADCO), Eric (NY DEC), Winston (NY DEC), Jeongran (NY DEC), Mike Ku (NY DEC), Mark Janssen (LADCO), Mike Woodman (MDE), Mark Hixon (CARB), Margaret MPCA), Kathleen (NH DES), Kelly (LA DEQ), Vivian (LA DEQ), Christine (LA DEQ), Kristen (VA DEQ), Jin-sheng (VA DEQ), Susan (MARAMA), Tim (US FWS), Chris (TCEQ), Jeff (US EPA OAQPS)

Agenda

  1. Introductions
  2. Background on the Inventory Collaborative + Q&A for people new to the Collaborative
  3. Workgroup ground rules
  4. Discussion on the goals/objectives of this workgroup
  5. Workgroup products and milestones
  6. Thoughts on logistical challenges: modeling, software distribution, data distribution
  7. Next Steps

Call Notes

Background on the Inventory Collaborative

Workgroup ground rules

  • Structure & membership
    • Co-leads: Zac Adelman, LADCO (temporary until EPA co-lead identified); Eric Zalwesky, NY DEC
    • Co-leads take care of the logistics, facilitate discussions, drive the schedule
    • Workgroup members contribute to the extent that they have time and ability
    • Collaborative is a voluntary effort of federal, state, and MJO staff; other organization staff (e.g., university or consulting) can be invited to make presentations to the workgroup, but not to participate as a member
  • Operational Principles
    • Do the best possible work and create the best possible products given the available resources; perfect is the enemy of good
    • Documentation of the process is as important as the process
    • Transparency in the workgroup's decisions is fundamental to the Collaborative
    • Strive for consensus-based decisions
  • Communication
    • Document our meetings, decisions, and work through this wiki
    • Google Drive is used to share data, files, and documents
    • Email group: inventory-collaborative-modeling-workgroup@ladco.org

Discussion on the goals/objectives of this workgroup

  • Goal is to create a national emissions modeling platform for processing the Collaborative 2016 and future year inventories
  • An emissions modeling platform is the software (SMOKE+scripts) and data (inventories+ancillary) for preparing inputs to chemistry-transport models, includes documentation
  • NY DEC: kudos to EPA for putting together well-documented and functional emissions modeling platforms
  • Do we take what EPA is already doing with the 2016 modeling platform or do we start from scratch and build our own platform?
    • LADCO: use what EPA has already done and build off of that
    • NY: use EPA's beta platform as a starting point
    • TCEQ: we agree with this one. I don’t think we need to wait for the v1. Get the kinks out as early as we can.
    • MN: start with EPA's platform
  • This workgroup's efforts may be best targeted at testing and improving the EPA platform
    • Improvements to ancillary data
    • Document process for switching out sectors in the EPA platform (e.g., biogenic or EGU point)
      • TCEQ: MEGAN v. BEIS, and ERTAC v. IPM/Engineered whatever, and other options.
    • Define a series of evaluation reports/products/analyses and work on these through this workgroup
    • Leverage regional expertise to evaluate the platform performance/skill by region
    • Create new modeling grids, and regrid the data
      • TCEQ: Do we know exactly what EPA is planning? I can offer up our definitions. For our WRF domain we used essentially what EPA is using, but we have one huge 12 km domain that we aggregate up to 36 km outside the CONUS for quicker runtimes.
  • Need to get understandable, custom reports from EPA to use for doing the evaluation, analysis
    • Can we define the reports that we want to see and ask EPA to generate these reports? Action: Jeff V. is going to check on this
  • This group would serve as the first beta tester for 2016 beta platform being created by EPA
    • Can this workgroup get preferred, early access to the EPA platform scripts for beta testing? Action: Jeff V. is going to check on this

Workgroup products and milestones

  • beta and v1 emissions modeling platforms
  • target is to have a public distribution within 3-6 months

Thoughts on logistical challenges: modeling, software distribution, data distribution

  • Emissions data collection
    • modeling workgroups will be putting their data products into a staging area on Google Drive
    • EPA and the collaborative will have access to this staging area
    • the data will eventually be packaged and distributed as part of an emissions modeling platform
  • Emissions processing
    • SMOKE-EMF or SMOKE?
      • TCEQ: Is Texas the only SMOKE-free group? I assume we can get files in flat formats? If not, we may have code that we’ve used in the past to convert SMOKEd files
    • EPA is creating a SMOKE-EMF 2016 beta platform; they're already processing several inventory components
  • Documentation
    • Specification sheet model being used for the inventory workgroups would also be used here; need to document software in addition to data
  • Platform packaging
  • Platform distribution
    • Is there a protocol for distributing emissions data? If not, we'll need to develop one with EPA
    • TCEQ: Would EPA host this on their ftp site, or is there an alternative?
  • Emissions data evaluation
    • What types of evaluations would we do?
    • It could be useful to present the data in different ways, from different perspectives
    • Create a standard format for the analyses so that each workgroup is create products that are comparable
    • Create a repository for sharing emissions analysis codes and scripts
    • It's not clear what level of evaluation EPA will be doing, and how they will deliver this evaluation
    • What can this group bring to the evaluation from the regional/state/local perspective?
    • TCEQ: This makes me think about how states often develop refinements for their own inventories and use EPA’s platform for everywhere else. Can the collaborative do some outreach to try to gather this information from any state who isn’t participating in the 2016 effort due to resource constraints. Maybe some kind of “last call” through the MJOs? Then again, maybe this kind of piecemeal isn’t the preferred approach.
  • Feedback to inventory workgroups
    • review documentation/spec sheets
    • beta testing of the EPA platform package
  • Platform technical support

Next Steps

  • Evaluate the state of the Collaborative inventory workgroups, and figure out when we expect to get data from these groups
  • Need to decide if this workgroup is going to do emissions processing, if so where and by whom, or if we let EPA do the processing and we focus on the evaluation/documentation of the process
    • If anyone has time, it might be a good check for someone to SMOKE this separately, that way we could all agree that the processing gave the same results.
    • In this first meeting, the feeling was that we should be taking what EPA is already doing and then focus our efforts on evaluation; need to bring in other perspectives from those WG members who are not on this call (other MJOs, states, and EPA) before we commit to this direction
  • Develop a process for evaluating the collaborative emissions, e.g., air quality modeling, inventory comparisons back to earlier NEI versions
    • Build capacity to share scripts/tools
    • Define some evaluation metrics that we would all like to see, and commit to using the evaluation products to making improvements to the modeling platform (e.g., to ancillary data)
  • TCEQ: So this workgroup will not address any potential meteorology issues, even though SMOKE relies on the met, and the PGM relies on the met? This workgroup will not apply AMET to EPA’s met or air quality results? Nor will this group review EPA’s met procedures and documentation?