Typical meteorological year

Data are provided as measured data or prepared data, representing typical data for a period of several years. Design reference years (DRY) established using methods developed with the framework of the lEA (International Energy Agency) represent characteristic data for a period of 10 years, condensed into a one-year data set. Internal coherence, e.g., between solar irradiation and air temperature, is maintained. For the United States, typical meteorological year (TMY) files are based on measurements in the period 1954 through 1972. 

The MACCS2 code modeled weather for transport and dispersion by sampling a database of 8760 hourly weather data covering one full year. The Typical Meteorological Year for the Albuquerque International Airport (Sunport), as developed by the National Climatic Center, was chosen as representative site weather data (Aldrich et al. 1982). This same weather file has been used for CRAC and MACCS dose versus distance calculations in TA-V SARs since 1980. 

Typical temporal resolutions of the predicted concentrations are several minutes to several hours and several months to one year. If the temporal resolution of the model is the order of several minutes to several hours, the model is generally used to compute concentrations over the course of one or more days. If the temporal resolution is several months to one year, the model is used to predict the average concentration in the airshed over such a time period, usually taking into account the frequency of occurrence of various meteorological conditions. 

The book assumes that the reader has had introductory courses in thermodynamics, transport phenomena (fluid mechanics and/or heat and mass transfer), and engineering mathematics (differential equations). Thus the treatment is aimed at the senior or first-year graduate level in typical engineering curricula as well as in meteorology and atmospheric science programs. 

Meteorological data should be specified for the site. These should be based on data collected close to the site over a nnmber of years and typically include wind direction, wind speed, stability category, rainfall and mixing layer depth. (The precise data would depend on the computer code used.)... 

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