20 May 2022Can I use NWP met data for dispersion modelling?

CERC has been commissioned to carry out an investigation into the use of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) met data in atmospheric dispersion modelling. CERC's consultancy and scientific research teams will focus on modelling carried out for planning and permitting under EPR, whilst the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) will target probabilistic accident consequence assessments. The project will provide important evidence for determining which NWP data are most appropriate for dispersion modelling and how complex terrain affects this.

To date, CERC has carried out a review of NWP models and their associated datasets. For selected datasets, we will compare meteorological parameters at a range of receptor locations over flat and complex terrain, including near coastlines.

CERC will carry out comparison studies for regulatory atmospheric dispersion modelling by configuring ADMS and AERMOD to represent different scenarios, using the selected NWP met datasets as input. The aim is to examine the extent to which more finely resolved NWP met data may result in dispersion modelling predictions that better reflect meteorological conditions at the dispersion site.

Where local terrain modelling and the NWP model take account of a coincident range of spatial scales, the impacts of terrain on flow, and hence dispersion, may be double counted. We will carry out an investigation to quantify the magnitude of this effect on modelled concentrations.

UKHSA will investigate the use of NWP data in probabilistic accident consequence assessments, using the PACE suite of models and the Met Office NAME model.

The work is funded by the UK Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling Liaison Committee (ADMLC). CERC have previously led or contributed to ADMLC studies of near-field dispersion, non-point source dispersion, dispersion model sensitivity to source term parameters, urban dispersion and odour modelling. The reports for these studies and those by other authors on various topics remain freely available.

Credit: figure taken from NOAA, Public Domain

25 Apr 2022Hearing air pollution: sound art from WM-Air

Air pollution concentration data for the West Midlands (UK), modelled with CERC's ADMS-Urban model, have had new interpretations created by sound artist Robert Jarvis which are now available to experience online. Listeners can watch the variation of air pollution with synchronised audio based on the spatially and temporally varying concentration levels representing either an average daily cycle or an example route across the area. The art aims to stimulate public curiosity about air quality, to improve understanding of how to manage personal exposure to air pollution and to inspire reductions in emissions.

The underlying modelled concentrations come from baseline ADMS-Urban modelling carried out for the WM-Air project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and led by the University of Birmingham. CERC were involved in emissions processing using the Emissions Inventory Toolkit (EMIT) and assisted with model evaluation, as published and presented at the CERC User Group Meeting in 2021. WM-Air regional modelling of emissions scenarios for particulate concentrations using the CMAQ model has also recently been published.

12 Apr 2022CERC launches MAQS-Health coupled air quality modelling system

This ambitious SPF Clean Air project, led by CERC, has developed a new world-leading coupled air quality modelling system spanning national to urban street scales and accounting for physical and chemical processes at all relevant scales: from thousands of kilometres to metres, and from seconds to days or weeks.

We launched the system on 24th March at an online workshop with 50 stakeholders from organisations including Defra, Environment Agency, Met Office, UKHSA, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales, and 13 universities and research organisations. The Universities of Edinburgh, Birmingham and Lancaster, the Met Office, and CERC presented case studies of the system application. We also launched interactive maps of example system output at 20m resolution across the UK (see the figure).

The system predictions are available at a wide range of spatial and temporal resolutions enabling personal exposure and health impact modelling using a range of metrics at national, city, neighbourhood and local scales. Researchers using the system are able to investigate health inequalities, and also assess a wide range of national and local policy measures such as Clean Air Zones and reduced ammonia emissions from farming.

The MAQS-Health system is available for research projects. If you are interested in using the system please contact CERC and we will be delighted to discuss your research with you.

31 Mar 2022Mapping solid fuel use for potential extension of smoke control area in York

CERC Consultants have been working with City of York Council, UK, who are considering additional measures for smoke control actions, including a potential extension of the city's Smoke Control Area (SCA).

To aid the Council's decision-making, we generated GIS datasets to provide insights into solid fuel use across York. Fuel use data from Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Council data for wood burner installations were mapped using address locations from the Local Land and Property Gazetteer.

Key insights from the mapping include:

• Solid fuel as a heating source is more common outside the SCA
• Outside the SCA, properties using solid fuel as the main fuel are, on average, older and larger, compared to those inside the SCA
• The data show a link between high levels of solid and liquid main fuels, and lack of access to the mains gas network
• Properties using liquid fuel as the main fuel and solid fuel for secondary heating are predominately outside the SCA, as shown in the figure. The level of solid fuel use in such properties may be sensitive to liquid fuel prices.

Based on this work, City of York Council are considering changes to the SCA boundary, subject to further consultation.

28 Feb 2022ADMS-Urban, ADMS-Roads & ADMS-Airport 5.0.1 released

CERC are pleased to announce that version 5.0.1 of ADMS-Urban, ADMS-Roads and ADMS-Airport is now available for download from the user area.

ADMS-Roads is designed primarily for networks of roads that may be in combination with industrial sites, for instance small towns or rural road networks. ADMS-Urban can model large urban areas providing output from street-scale to urban-scale. ADMS-Airport has the features of ADMS-Urban, and can also incorporate all relevant emission sources at airports by using algorithms designed specifically to model dispersion from aircraft engines.

Some of the new features in version 5.0.1 include

• Modelling flyovers: this version includes a major new option for modelling flyovers, i.e. roads elevated above local ground level, using a more advanced approach than the one used for standard elevated road sources.
• EFT 11.0: the latest UK EFT emission dataset has been added for the calculation of road traffic emissions.
• Windows 11: The new release has been tested and is supported on the latest Windows operating system

All the updates are described in detail in the What's New? guide.

For further information on this release or any CERC products please email us.