The technical papers in this issue of the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association (JA&WMA) were derived from presentations made at the 11th annual Community Modeling and Analysis System (CMAS) Conference that was held in October 2012.
The Community Modeling and Analysis System (CMAS; http://www.cmascenter.org) Center, hosted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was established in 2001 to leverage the modeling community’s expertise in air quality modeling and analyses to support policy decisions on air pollution control and regulation. The center facilitates the development, maintenance, and support of publicly available and scientifically sound air quality modeling systems that are flexible and user-friendly as tools for decision support. Utilizing the one-atmosphere concept, the modeling systems simulate multiple pollutants on various time and space scales with detailed description of relevant atmospheric processes. The modeling systems are used to estimate ambient concentrations of pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter, as well as toxic air pollutants.
CMAS maintains and oversees the development and release to the community at large of 10 modeling and analysis tools, including the atmospheric chemistry transport model CMAQ; the emissions processor SMOKE; and the visualization tool VERDI. Typically, each year there are more than 10,000 downloads by community members of the CMAS modeling and analysis tools. The CMAS center has more than 5000 registered users all over the world. CMAS’s very popular training program provides short courses (two to three days) on some of the modeling and analysis tools just mentioned. Training sessions are announced on a periodic basis for courses and are held on-site at the University Campus, as well off-site at locations nationally and internationally. During the past few years, CMAS has offered training sessions to scientists in South Korea, Europe, Brazil, India, and Hong Kong.
Each fall, CMAS holds a well-attended users’sconference. The object of the three-day conference is to bring together members of the air quality community to present, discuss, and learn about recent advances in the field. More than 260 scientists participated in the 11th annual CMAS Conference that was held in October 2012. Presentations were given on global/regional modeling applications; air quality model development; emissions inventories, models, and processes; coupled meteorological/chemistry models; model evaluation and analysis; source–receptor modeling and analysis; air quality measurements and observational studies; and secondary impacts from single sources or single source complexes.
In addition to the oral sessions, the conference also included a users’ forum, where invited panel members moderated discussions with participants on a specific modeling topic and identified areas for research needs to advance atmospheric modeling approaches. In particular, the model development and model evaluation sessions are reoccurring features of the conference every year, since development brings to the community advances in modeling concepts, while evaluation is the way to examine and establish the credibility of the model performance in reproducing the observed spatiotemporal features embedded in ambient pollutant concentrations.
The papers included in this issue of JA&WMA were presented during the conference’s model evaluation and model development sessions. I hope that the grouping of papers published in this issue will stimulate further development and confidence building for atmospheric chemistry transport models and further expand on their use and applications for policy development.
Acknowledgment
Dr. Hanna thanks Dr. S. T. Rao, JA&WMA Editor-in-Chief, and the A&WMA editorial staff for their support and guidance during the preparation of this issue.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Adel F. Hanna
Adel F. Hanna is a research professor and director of the CMAS Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.