Lakes Environmental to Present Course & Paper at A&WMA Speciality Conference

Dr. Jesse Thé will be presenting the "AERMOD Air Dispersion Modeling" professional development course at the A&WMA ‘s Emerging Issues in Air Quality Modeling for Canada Conference on October 2^nd, 2006.

At the conference, Dr. Thé will also be presenting the paper “Real Time Modeling for Hazardous Monitoring” on October 4^th, 2006. This conference will provide a technical forum for environmental professionals to share experiences, applications, and research related to air quality modeling in Canada and throughout North America.

For more information about the A&WMA Specialty Conference, or to see the preliminary agenda, please visit the conference website.

Dr. Jesse Thé is the president and founder of Lakes Environmental Software.

Exponent Receives Customized Training from Lakes Environmental

Lakes Environmental will be presenting the air quality staff of Exponent with a customized AERMOD course. The training course will be held in Alexandria, Virginia and will take place from September 18^th to September 19^th, 2006.

Lakes Environmental Offering Several International Training Courses

In association with our distributors, a number of AERMOD and CALPUFF training courses have been set. Within the next three months, Lakes Environmental will be presenting courses in Australia, Brazil, Spain, and India. This represents a unique opportunity for industry, consultants and regulatory authorities to receive world class training in these air dispersion models. Please see our Upcoming Courses section to register or obtain more information on these courses.

Lakes Environmental Closed for Canadian Thanksgiving!

Lakes Environmental will be closed on October 9^th, 2006 to observe the Thanksgiving holiday. If you have any pressing needs during that time, please email us at support@weblakes.com and we will contact you on October 10^th 2006.

We’ve set a number of training dates for 2006, with additional courses to be announced. Please contact us at training@weblakes.com for international or customized training inquiries.

Courses Filling up!

Our Boston AERMOD Course is filling up - register now to book your spot!

AERMOD Courses

CALPUFF Courses

For more information on these courses, such as registration information and course outlines, please visit our website: https://www.weblakes.com/courses.html.

Customized Courses

Lakes Environmental offers a variety of on-site, customized courses for all of your air dispersion modeling needs.  For information on pricing and availability, please email us at training@weblakes.com.

Map Projection Systems in CALPUFF

The spherical shape of the earth requires the use of a map projection system to translate a given site onto a flat domain (flat map). The selection of the appropriate map projection system will ensure that map features such as terrain, borders, roads, etc, are not severely distorted when a site is represented on a Cartesian plane.

The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) and the Lambert Conformal Conic (LCC) are the two most commonly used map projection systems in CALPUFF modeling projects.

When Should LCC Projection Be Used in CALPUFF?

The UTM map projection system is generally used in short-range air dispersion modeling projects such as ISCST3 and AERMOD. For long-range models, such as CALPUFF, the option of using the Lambert Conformal Conic (LCC) map projection becomes more suitable when:

a) The source-receptor distance >100 km

b) The site is located in or above mid-latitudes (e.g., 48 degrees)

How to Convert an Existing CALPUFF UTM Projected Site Domain into an LCC Projection?

Sometimes, a CALPUFF project that is initially created in the UTM map projection system needs to be converted into the LCC projection system. The conversion, in this case, will follow the general scheme shown below:

Three points on the UTM projected site are critical in the conversion process:

• The center of the domain: this can represent the projection origin in the LCC projection system.

• The south-west corner (SW corner): this can represent the 1st standard parallel in the LCC projection system.

• The north-east corner (NE corner): this can represent the 2nd standard parallel in the LCC projection system.

Once these three points are noted, the following two-step process converts the site domain into the LCC projection:

Step 1: The UTM coordinates of each of these three points should be entered into a geographical coordinate converter and the corresponding geographical coordinates (latitude/longitude) of each point should be noted. When converting UTM coordinates into geographical coordinates, the following parameters are necessary:

• UTM X and Y coordinates
• Datum
• UTM zone
• Hemisphere

Step 2: The next step is to specify the appropriate LCC parameters for your site domain by ensuring that:

1. Datum: Specify the datum to be used for the LCC Projected site (e.g. NAD83, WGS84). The majority of the time this is the same datum of the UTM projected site.

2. Standard Parallels: The latitude of the ‘SE corner’ and the ‘NE corner’ are entered as the standard parallels.

3. Projection Origin: The latitude/longitude coordinates of the center of the domain are entered as the projection origin.

4. False Easting and Northing: The false easting (X) and northing (Y) are offsets (in meters) that enable the domain to have positive coordinates in both directions. If an offset is not required, specify (0,0).

Note: Once the above steps are completed, the site domain of your project is successfully converted to the LCC projection system. However, the corresponding LCC coordinates of the following objects within the site have to be determined (from existing UTM coordinates):

• Grids
• Sources
• Receptors
• Buildings

These conversions can be done by using a coordinate converter. Make sure to specify the same LCC projection parameters (parallels, origin, false easting, false northing and datum) in the coordinate converter as used in your CALPUFF LCC Projection (see Step 2).

CALPUFF View Users: CALPUFF View offers a tool that allows for several types of coordinate conversions. This Coordinate Converter utility is available under the Tools menu. In CALPUFF View, you can specify the LCC projection parameters (e.g., projection origin, standard parallels, and false easting and northing) in the Site Domain dialog.

Other Users: Several websites offer coordinate converter tools (click here for an example).

We are currently accepting submissions for the Monthly Modeling Tip which 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.

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Here are a few Conferences and Tradeshows coming up in the next few months: