Log file

Name and path of the log file are contained in variable LOGFIL read from the LAPOST main input file. The log file summarizes the LAPOST input variable, shows working information and reports the error or warning messages when they are generated. It contains also several information concerning the processing, as for example the maximum 1-hour and 24-hour values, the maximum up to the specified orders (see variables IMAXH and IMAXG), the maximum percentile values and other information.

1-hour averages

Two output files are created for the 1-hour averages, their name is indicated by FOUT_MAXH. The first file has a CSV format, and each record contains the following six fields:

  • X coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Y coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Index of the grid cell along X,
  • Index of the grid cell along Y,
  • Maximum 1-hour concentration,
  • Number of exceedances of the 1-hour threshold.

When LODOR = T each record contains two additional fields:

  • Number of times that the odor threshold is exceeded,
  • Time duration of the episode of maximum length.

The second file has a GRD format (ESRI or SURFER according to the LESRI input variable) and contains the maximum 1-hour concentrations predicted by LAPMOD at every point during the simulation.

When discrete receptors are used, an additional CSV file with extension .rec is also created (file name is indicated in FOUT_MAXH). Each record of this file contains:

  • The discrete receptor index,
  • The X coordinate of the receptor,
  • The Y coordinate of the receptor,
  • The height Z above the ground,
  • The maximum 1-hour concentration,
  • The number of exceedances of the 1-hour threshold.

Two output files are also created for the percentiles of the 1-hour concentrations, their name is indicated in FOUT_PCTH.

The first file has a CSV format, and each record contains the following five fields:

  • X coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Y coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Index of the grid cell along X,
  • Index of the grid cell along Y,
  • The concentration value corresponding to the percentile.

The second file has a GRD format (ESRI or SURFER according to the LESRI input variable) and contains the concentrations values corresponding to the percentile specified in VPCT_MH.

When discrete receptors are used, an additional CSV file with extension .rec is also created (file name is indicated in FOUT_PCTH). Each record of this file contains:

  • • The discrete receptor index,
  • • The X coordinate of the receptor,
  • • The Y coordinate of the receptor,
  • • The height Z above the ground,
  • • The concentration value corresponding to the specified percentile.

24-hour averages

Two output files are created for the 24-hour averages, their name is indicated by FOUT_MAXG.

The first file has a CSV format, and each record contains the following six fields:

  • X coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Y coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Index of the grid cell along X,
  • Index of the grid cell along Y,
  • Maximum 24-hour concentration,
  • Number of exceedances of the 24-hour threshold.

The second file has a GRD format (ESRI or SURFER according to the LESRI input variable) and contains the maximum 24-hour concentrations predicted by LAPMOD at every point during the simulation.

When discrete receptors are used, an additional CSV file with extension .rec is also created (file name is indicated in FOUT_MAXG). Each record of this file contains:

  • The discrete receptor index,
  • The X coordinate of the receptor,
  • The Y coordinate of the receptor,
  • The height Z above the ground,
  • The maximum 24-hour concentration,
  • The number of exceedances of the 24-hour threshold.

Two output files are also created for the percentiles of the 24-hour concentrations, their name is indicated in FOUT_PCTG.

The first file has a CSV format, and each record contains the following five fields:

  • X coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Y coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Index of the grid cell along X,
  • Index of the grid cell along Y,
  • The concentration value corresponding to the percentile.

The second file has a GRD format (ESRI or SURFER according to the LESRI input variable) and contains the concentrations values corresponding to the percentile specified in VPCT_MG.

When discrete receptors are used, an additional CSV file with extension .rec is also created (file name is indicated in FOUT_PCTG). Each record of this file contains:

  • The discrete receptor index
  • The X coordinate of the receptor
  • The Y coordinate of the receptor
  • The height Z above the ground
  • The concentration value corresponding to the specified percentile

8-hour running averages

Two output files are created for the 8-hour running averages, their name is indicated by FOUT_MAX8.

The first file has a CSV format, and each record contains the following six fields:

  • X coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Y coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Index of the grid cell along X,
  • Index of the grid cell along Y,
  • Maximum 8-hour running average concentration,
  • Number of exceedances of the 8-hour threshold.

The second file has a GRD format (ESRI or SURFER according to the LESRI input variable) and contains the maximum 8-hour running average concentrations predicted by LAPMOD at every point during the simulation.

When discrete receptors are used, an additional CSV file with extension .rec is also created (file name is indicated in FOUT_MAXG). Each record of this file contains:

  • The discrete receptor index,
  • The X coordinate of the receptor,
  • The Y coordinate of the receptor,
  • The height Z above the ground,
  • The maximum 8-hour running average concentration,
  • The number of exceedances of the 8-hour threshold.

Averages over the whole period

Two output files are created for the period average, their name is indicated by FOUT_YEAR.

The first file has a CSV format, and each record contains the following five fields:

  • X coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Y coordinate of the lower left corner of the grid cell,
  • Index of the grid cell along X,
  • Index of the grid cell along Y,
  • Period average concentration.

The second file has a GRD format (ESRI or SURFER according to the LESRI input variable) and contains the period average concentration predicted by LAPMOD at every point during the simulation.

When discrete receptors are used, an additional CSV file with extension .rec is also created (file name is indicated in FOUT_YEAR). Each record of this file contains:

  • The discrete receptor index,
  • The X coordinate of the receptor,
  • The Y coordinate of the receptor,
  • The height Z above the ground,
  • The period average concentration.

Odors

During odor processing, as anticipated, two additional fields are written in the CSV output file indicated in FOUT_MAXH:

  • The number of episodes of exceedance of the odor threshold,
  • The time duration of the longest episode.

Two GRD files are also created (ESRI or SURFER according to the LESRI input variable) containing respectively the duration of the longest episode at each point (FOUT_MAXD), and the VPCT_D percentile of the episode durations at each point (FOUT_PCTD).

In addition, if discrete receptors have been used in LAPMOD, for each of them a CSV file with the duration of each single episode is written in the output folder. Each CSV file has a name of type odor_recNN.csv, where NN is the receptor number. An example of such output file is reported in Table 5; episodes durations are reported in hours.

EPISODE,DURATION
    1,    2.
    2,    2.
    3,    1.
    4,    3.
    5,    2.
    6,    1.
    7,    6.
    8,    1.
    9,    1.
   10,    1.
   11,    2.
   12,    1.
   13,    1.
   14,    1.
   15,    2.
   16,    3.
   17,    1.
   18,    1.
   19,    3.
   20,    2.
   21,    1.
   22,    3.
   23,    1.
                    
Example of output file with odor episode durations at one discrete receptor.

Extraction of a specific time interval

LAPOST allows to extract the output fields within a specific time interval. Such an option is activated when the input variable IEXTR is 1. Only the output fields within the interval specified by the initial date (XTRINI) and the final date (XTRFIN) are extracted. As particular cases only one time is extracted when XTRINI=XTRFIN, and all the times are extracted when XTRINI is equal or preceeds the initial time of simulation, and XTRFIN is equal or successive the final time of simulation. The dates in XTRINI and XTRFIN must be specified as YYYY MM DD hh. Each output file is created with a name of the format VVVV_SSS_YYYYMMDDhhmm.EXT where VVVV is an abbreviation of the variable to extract (CONC, TCON, DDEP, WDEP, TDEP), SSS is the species name, and YYYYMMDDhhmm is the date. The extension EXT is CSV or GRD according to the input variable LCSV (true or false, respectively). When the extension is GRD, the format is the one specified by the input variable LESRI.

This procedure may potentially create thousands of files, requiring a lot of disk space and long times. For example, for a 1-year long simulation the extraction of all the 1-hour averages will create 8760 files for each variable/species. The extraction of values for each time interval can be done for each output variable, while the calculation of statistics is carried out only for concentrations.

Extraction of computational particles

During the extraction of the computational particles for each output time a CSV file is created with the following name format: PTCS_ANY_YYYYMMDDhhmm.csv, where the string YYYYMMDDhhmm indicates date and time. Each of these output file may contain thousands of records. Each record contains the fields described in Table 6. The CSV may be viewed in MS Excel, or imported in Google Earth to automatically represent the particles positions. An example of particles imported in Google Earth is shown in Figure 1; by clicking over each particle the values of its properties (described in Table 6) are automatically visualized.

XP UTM X coordinate (Easting) of the particle (m).
YP UTM Y coordinate (Northing) of the particle (m).
ZP Height of the particle above the ground (m).
UTMZN UTM zone at which the coordinates refer.
LAT Particle latitudine (degrees).
LON Particle longitude (degrees).
SIGMA_H Horizontal sigma of the particle (m). It is always zero when the concentration is calculated with one of the Uliasz kernels.
SIGMA_Z Vertical sigma of the particle (m). It is always zero when the concentration is calculated with one of the Uliasz kernels.
AGE Age of the particle (s). It indicates the time elapsed since the particle release.
PMASS Mass of the particle (g).
PDIAM Diameter of the particle (m). It is zero for gaseous species.
WINDX X wind component at the point where the particle is located (m/s).
WINDY Y wind component at the point where the particle is located (m/s).
WINDZ Z wind component at the point where the particle is located (m/s).
ALANGX X component of the A coefficient of the Langevin equation (m/s2)
ALANGY Y component of the A coefficient of the Langevin equation (m/s2)
ALANGZ Z component of the A coefficient of the Langevin equation (m/s2)
BLANGX X component of the B coefficient of the Langevin equation (m/s)
BLANGY Y component of the B coefficient of the Langevin equation (m/s)
BLANGZ Z component of the B coefficient of the Langevin equation (m/s)
HPBL Mixing layer height at the point where the particle is located (m). It does not depend on the vertical coordinate of the particle.
OBUKI Monin Obukhov length at the point where the particle is located (m). It does not depend on the vertical coordinate of the particle.
USTAR Friction velocity at the point where the particle is located (m/s). It does not depend on the vertical coordinate of the particle.
ROUGH Roughness length at the point where the particle is located (m). It does not depend on the vertical coordinate of the particle.
ISTAB Stability index at the point where the particle is located (-1 unstable; 0 neutral; 1 stable). It does not depend on the vertical coordinate of the particle.
ISUBST Index of the substance represented by the particle.
IP Index of the particle.
ISOUR Index of the source from which the particle has been released.
ISTAT Index of status: 1 active particle; 0 inactive particle.
IPROP Index of vertical position: 1 particle within the mixing layer; 2 particle above the mixing layer.
ISBUOY Numerical flag equal to 1 if the particle is in plume rise phase, 0 otherwise.
Fields within the particles output file.

The CSV file may be opened in Excel to analyze the values, or imported in Google Earth to see the particles.


References

  • Bellasio R. e R. Bianconi (2012) Il sistema modellistico LAPMOD per la simulazione dell'inquinamento atmosferico in orografia complessa. Ingegneria Ambientale, vol. XLI, n. 6, novembre-dicembre 2012, 492-500.
  • Scire, J.S., F.R. Robe, M.E. Fernau and R.J. Yamartino, 2000a: A user's guide for the CALMET meteorological model (Version 5). Earth Tech. Inc., Concord, MA.
  • Scire, J.S., D.G. Strimaitis and R.J. Yamartino, 2000: A user's guide for the CALPUFF dispersion model (Version 5). Earth Tech. Inc., Concord, MA.
  • US-EPA (2005). Revision to the Guideline on Air Quality Models: Adoption of a Preferred General Purpose (Flat and Complex Terrain) Dispersion Model and Other Revisions; Final Rule. Federal Register, Vol. 70, N. 216, November 9, 2005. Rules and Regulations.