AERMOD

• A steady-state dispersion model designed for short-range dispersion of air pollutant emissions from stationary industrial sources.
• A meteorological data preprocessor that accepts surface meteorological data, upper air soundings, and optionally, data from on-site instrument towers. It then calculates atmospheric parameters needed by the dispersion model, such as atmospheric turbulence characteristics, mixing heights, friction velocity, Monin-Obukov length and surface heat flux.
• A terrain preprocessor whose main purpose is to provide a physical relationship between terrain features and the behavior of air pollution plumes. It generates location and height data for each receptor location. It also provides information that allows the dispersion model to simulate the effects of air flowing over hills or splitting to flow around hills.

History of the development of AERMOD

• Initial model formulation
• Developmental evaluation
• Internal peer review and beta testing
• Revised model formulation
• Performance evaluation and sensitivity testing
• External peer review
• Submission to the EPA for consideration as a regulatory model.

Features and capabilities of AERMOD

• Source types: Multiple point, area and volume sources
• Source releases: Surface, near surface and elevated sources
• Source locations: Urban or rural locations. Urban effects are scaled by population.
• Plume types: Continuous, buoyant plumes
• Plume deposition: Dry or wet deposition of particulates and/or gases
• Plume dispersion treatment: Gaussian model treatment in horizontal and in vertical for stable atmospheres. Non-Gaussian treatment in vertical for unstable atmospheres
• Terrain types: Simple or complex terrain
• Building effects: Handled by PRIME downwash algorithms
• Meteorology data height levels: Accepts meteorology data from multiple heights
• Meteorological data profiles: Vertical profiles of wind, turbulence and temperature are created