Table of Contents - The Atmospheric Studies Group at TRC

Section 9: CALPUFF
9.2 Meteorological Data Files
Four types of meteorological data files can be used to drive the CALPUFF model. In order to take full
advantage of the capabilities of the model to simulate the effects spatially-varying meteorological fields,
gridded fields of winds, temperatures, mixing heights, and other meteorological variables should be input
to CALPUFF through the CALMET.DAT file. The format and contents of this file are described in
Section 9.2.1.
Alternatively, CALPUFF will accept single station meteorological data in the ISC3 format, CTDMPLUS
/ AERMET format, or AUSPLUME format. The ISC3 meteorological data file (ISCMET.DAT) is
described in Section 9.2.2, the AUSPLUME file (PLMMET.DAT) is described in Section 9.2.3, and the
CTDMPLUS meteorological data files SURFACE.DAT and PROFILE.DAT are described in Section
9.2.4.
9.2.1 CALMET.DAT
The CALMET.DAT file contains gridded meteorological data fields required to drive the CALPUFF
model. It also contains certain geophysical fields, such as terrain elevations, surface roughness lengths,
and land use types, used by both the CALMET meteorological model and CALPUFF. Although the input
requirements of CALPUFF are designed to be directly compatible with CALMET, meteorological fields
produced by other meteorological models can be substituted for the CALMET output as long as the
required variables are produced and the output is reformatted to be consistent with the CALMET.DAT
file specifications described in this section.
CALMET.DAT File - Header Records
The CALMET.DAT file consists of a set of up to fifteen header records, plus a variable number of
comment records, followed by a set of data records. The header records contain file identification labels,
descriptive titles of the CALMET run (including a complete image of the CALMET control file) as
comment records, information including the horizontal and vertical grid systems of the meteorological
grid, the number, type, and coordinates of the meteorological stations included in the CALMET run,
gridded fields of surface roughness lengths, land use, terrain elevations, leaf area indexes, and a precomputed
field of the closest surface meteorological station number to each grid point.
In addition to the variable number of comment records, the number of header records may also vary
because records containing surface, upper air, and precipitation station coordinates are not included if
these stations were not included in the run. A description of each variable in the header records is
provided in Table 9-4.
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