1 RLINE: A Line Source Dispersion Model for Near-Surface Releases 2 Michelle G. Snyder1*, Akula Venkatram2, David K. Heist1, Steven G. Perry1, 3 William B. Petersen3, Vlad Isakov1 4 1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, National 5 Exposure Research Laboratory, Atmospheric Modeling and Analysis Division, Research 6 Triangle Park, NC 27711 USA 7 2University of California, Riverside, CA 92521 8 3William B. Petersen, Consulting, Research Triangle Park, NC 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 *corresponding author: Michelle G. Snyder (
[email protected]) 1 31 ABSTRACT 32 This paper describes the formulation and evaluation of RLINE, a Research LINE source 33 model for near-surface releases. The model is designed to simulate mobile source pollutant 34 dispersion to support the assessment of human exposures in near-roadway environments 35 where a significant portion of the population spends time. The model uses an efficient 36 numerical integration scheme to integrate the contributions of point sources used to represent 37 a line-source. Emphasis has been placed on estimates of concentrations very near to the 38 source line. The near-surface dispersion algorithms are based on new formulations of 39 horizontal and vertical dispersion within the atmospheric surface layer, details of which are 40 described in a companion paper (Venkatram et al. 2013), This paper describes the general 41 formulations of the RLINE model, the meteorological inputs for the model, the numerical 42 integration techniques, the handling of receptors close to the line source, and the performance 43 of the model against developmental data bases and near-road concentrations from 44 independent field studies conducted along actual highway segments.