New Promotional Pricing for CALPUFF View ^TM in Time for Upcoming Release

Lakes Environmental has announced new promotional pricing for CALPUFF View and annual maintenance. CALPUFF View is now $3,495US for a single-user license, a savings of $1,000US. In addition, annual maintenance is available for $795US, a savings of $200US.

This promotional pricing is now available for the current version of CALPUFF View, and will also be available for the Version 3.0 of the software, to be released within the next month.

If you want to take advantage of this promotional pricing, contact us at sales@weblakes.com.

New International Courses Announced

Lakes Environmental has announced several AERMOD and CALPUFF training courses for international modelers. Courses are available in India, Spain, and Brazil.

For more information on these courses, please visit the Upcoming Courses section on our website.

Lakes Environmental at A&WMA 2009!

Lakes Environmental will be at located booth 410 at the A&WMA’s 102 Annual Conference & Exhibition from June 16-19 in Detroit Michigan. If you have not already registered for the conference, the advance registration deadline has been extended to Friday, May 29, 2009. Register at the Conference website to save on your conference registration.

Drop by our booth for software demonstrations and your chance to win a free copy of AERMOD View^TM!

ArguSoft Offers AUSTAL View^TM Workshop in Cologne, Germany

ArguSoft, our German partner, is offering a 2-day AUSTAL View Workshop on September 21-22, 2009 in Cologne, Germany. The workshop will be presented in German and will cover all aspects of AUSTAL View, including an emphasis on:

• SRTM terrain data features
• UTM coordinate systems and projections
• Export to Google Earth™
• Odor compound support

For more information about this workshop, please view the course brochure, or contact ArguSoft at info@argusoft.de.

We’ve set a number of training dates for 2009. Please be sure to register in advance as spots are limited.

AERMOD Courses

CALPUFF Courses

AUSTAL Course

For more information on the above courses, including registration information, location, and course outlines, please visit our web site: www.weblakes.com/course.

Station Elevation in AERMET

The current version of AERMET, the US EPA’s meteorological preprocessor for AERMOD, gives the user the option to specify the elevation above mean sea level (MSL) of the surface meteorological station. This elevation is specified under the LOCATION keyword, for example:

LOCATION    24157 47.633N 117.533W 0 721.0

After the LOCATION keyword, the station ID, latitude and longitude and adjustment to local time are specified. Following this, the station elevation above MSL can be specified (721m in this example)

Currently, the station elevation is only used for TD-3505 format meteorological files (also know as Integrated Surface Hourly Data: ISHD). The purpose of the station elevation is to determine the atmospheric pressure at the station when this value is missing from the meteorological file. The TD-3505 file contains both sea level and station level pressure, so when the station level pressure is missing, it can be calculated from the sea level pressure and the station elevation.

Remember: We are currently accepting submissions for the Monthly Modeling Tip that 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.

Automakers Back Obama Rule to Raise MPG

May 19, 2009 -- WASHINGTON - Determined to reduce new vehicle carbon emissions by 30 percent, President Barack Obama on Tuesday is announcing that automakers will have to improve car and light truck mileage by that much starting in 2016.

The new requirement is estimated to cost consumers an extra $1,300 per vehicle, but drivers will be saving at the pump. Moreover, the increased miles per gallon should save 1.8 billion barrels of oil through 2016 and cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 900 million tons, the equivalent to shutting down 194 coal plants, a senior administration official said Monday.
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The First Evidence of Pre-industrial Mercury Pollution in the Andes

May 19, 2009 - The study of ancient lake sediment from high altitude lakes in the Andes has revealed for the first time that mercury pollution occurred long before the start of the Industrial Revolution.

University of Alberta Earth and Atmospheric Sciences PhD student Colin Cooke's results from two seasons of field work in Peru have now provided the first unambiguous records of pre-industrial mercury pollution from anywhere in the world and will be published in the May 18th Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
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Climate Bill CO2 Allocations Strategy

May 16, 2009 - The climate change bill moving through the U.S. Congress would initially give away the majority of permits to emit greenhouse gases to entities like electricity distributors and big energy users, such as steel and cement plants, in a cap and trade program.

President Barack Obama had campaigned on a plan of auctioning 100 percent of the permits, but has since indicated some flexibility.
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Green Protectionism Should be the Road Not Taken

May 14, 2009 – GLOBE-Net - In a speech yesterday to U.S. legislators, Canada’s Environment Minister Jim Prentice laid out the bare bones of the strategy Canada will bring to the global climate change meetings in Copenhagen later this year and issued a blunt warning about using environment protection as a thin disguise for trade protectionism.

"Trade protectionism in the name of environmental protection would be a prescription for disaster for both the global economy and the global environment," said the minister in an address at a U.S. State department Conference of the Americas.
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US EPA Outlines Ways to Reduce Our Carbon Footprint

May 13, 2009 – The US Environmental Protection Agency has some suggestions on how we can save energy this summer, and reduce our emissions of Green House Gasses. The energy used in an average home costs more than $2,200 a year and contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than a typical car. Looking at the Energy Star ratings on home appliances, cooling equipment, computers and entertainment devices can, collectively, make a large difference.
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Here are a few conferences and trade shows coming up in the next few months:

* Lakes Environmental is attending A&WMA