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A New Field-Validated Model for Site-Specific Landfill Methane Emissions
A New Field-Validated Model for Site-Specific Landfill Methane Emissions
Speakers: Jean Bogner, PhD, Research Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)
Kurt Spokas, Chemist, US Department of Agriculture
Session Description: Join this eSession to learn about the California Landfill Methane Inventory Model (CALMIM), a freely-available, user-friendly JAVA tool which estimates net CH4 emissions to the atmosphere for any landfill cover soil over a typical annual cycle. It takes into account the effect of engineered gas extraction; the physical effects of daily, intermediate, and final cover materials to retard emissions; and seasonal soil moisture and temperature effects on both gaseous transport and methanotrophic CH4 oxidation.
This web seminar will discuss the field validation of CALMIM using seasonal (wet/dry) CH4 emissions & oxidation measurements for daily, intermediate, and final cover soils over two annual cycles at a northern (Monterey County) and southern California (Los Angeles County) landfills. It will also touch on the Environmental Research and Education Foundation (EREF) support of expanded field validation of CALMIM in cooperation with several U.S. and international research groups.
CALMIM automatically links with several existing globally-validated USDA climate and soils models (Global TempSim; Global RainSim; Solarcalc; STM2) and relies on 1-D diffusion as the major driver for emissions. Importantly, unlike current inventory methods based on modeled generation, the driving force for emissions (e.g., the CH4 concentration gradient) can be directly compared to field data. Methane oxidation is scaled to maximum rates over the full range of moisture and temperature conditions based on extensive supporting laboratory studies using California landfill cover soils.
The current version (CALMIM 4.3) and manual are available at www.ars.usda.gov.
For registrations or more information, please click here.