MELSAR: a mesoscale air quality model for complex terrain. Volume 1: overview, technical description and user's guide.

This final report is submitted as part of the Green River Ambient Model Assessment (GRAMA) program conducted at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest Laboratory for the US Environmental Protection Agency. The GRAMA program has, as its ultimate goal, the development of validated air quality models that can be applied to the complex terrain of the Green River Formation of western Colorado, eastern Utah, and southern Wyoming. The Green River Formation is a geologic formation containing large reserves of oil shale, coal, and other natural resources. Development of these resources may lead to a degradation of the air quality of the region. Air quality models are needed immediately for planning and regulatory purposes to assess the magnitude of these regional impacts. This report documents one of the models being developed for this purpose within GRAMA - specifically a model to predict short averaging time (less than or equal to 24 h) pollutant concentrations resulting from the mesoscale transport of pollutant releases from multiple sources. MELSAR has not undergone any rigorous operational testing, sensitivity analyses, or validation studies. Testing and evaluation of the model are needed to gain a measure of confidence in the model's performance. This report consists ofmore » two volumes. Volume 1 contains the model overview, technical description, and user's guide, and Volume 2 contains the Appendices which include listings of the FORTRAN code. 51 refs., 31 figs., 35 tabs.« less