Figure 3.4, “Locations of intermediate and output files for SMOKE base case, basic configuration” shows the SMOKE intermediate directories for a basic configuration of a base case. In this configuration, the Assigns file variables ASCEN, BSCEN, MSCEN, PSCEN, and ESCEN are all set to the same value. These variables are the scenario names for the four processing categories (area, biogenic, mobile, and point) and the combined category (used when combining emissions from multiple source categories). Having these variables set to the same value allows a simpler structure in which the run_$ESCEN directory is the same as the run_$ASCEN, run_$BSCEN, run_$MSCEN, and run_$PSCEN directories. In the figure, this single directory is shown simply as run_$ESCEN.

The $BSCEN setting for biogenic sources is often set to a different scenario name, usually simply “beld2” or “beld3”. This is because there are not very many scenarios to choose from for biogenic emissions, since users almost always want to use one of the standard approaches and there are usually no control strategies considered for biogenic emissions. In this case, the run_$BSCEN directory is a separate branch in the directory structure that stores just the biogenic files for use by both base case and future-year control scenarios. For the nctox test case, we have not used this approach since the biogenic data is specific to the nctox modeling domain.

The following list describes the intermediate files that are associated with each of the intermediate directories $INVOPD, $SCENARIO, and $STATIC. You can refer to Chapter 9, SMOKE Intermediate Files for more information about each of the intermediate files (look under the logical file names).

Instead of using the basic configuration technique of setting the scenario name variables (ASCEN, BSCEN, MSCEN, PSCEN, and ESCEN) all to the same value (Section 3.2.4.1, “Basic configuration for base case”), you can set up an Assigns file to use different values for one or more of these variable. In this more advanced configuration, separate directories are created and used for intermediate and output files for each source category (examples of when this would be useful are given in the bullets below). Figure 3.5, “Locations of intermediate and output files for SMOKE base case, advanced configuration” illustrates the directory structure resulting from this approach; however, for simplicity’s sake, we have not included all of the files in this structure. The files are the same as in Figure 3.4, “Locations of intermediate and output files for SMOKE base case, basic configuration”, with the exception that files specific to a source category go to their category-specific directories, based on the values given to ASCEN, BSCEN, MSCEN, and/or PSCEN. Note that the nonpoint (stationary area) and nonroad mobile sources would need to use the same scenario name, even if they are processed separately, because the nonroad mobile static and scenario directories are set using the same ASCEN variable as for other area sources in the default Assigns files. Having separate source-category-specific directories does not change the number of intermediate or output files, it just rearranges the files and results into fewer intermediate, output, and/or report files in each directory.

This approach is particularly useful in the following cases:

The directory structure changes for growth and control cases. The default growth and control scripts have additional settings that impact the intermediate directories when running SMOKE. These settings are described in more detail in Chapter 4, Using SMOKE Scripts, but we introduce them here because they are closely linked to the directory structures used by SMOKE. The default configuration of SMOKE uses different directories for files impacted by growth and control so that they will be separated from the base-year files; this helps keep users from accidentally confusing their base and grown and/or controlled files.

The key script environment variables that impact the directory structures are:

The $SCENARIO directory for the future case is now a subdirectory of data/run_$ESCEN_$fyr2. The ATMP, MTMP, and PTMP files are stored in this directory, because these depend on the future-year emissions inventory. Although the temporal profile assignments stored in the ATSUP, MTSUP, and PTSUP files may not have changed from the base case, these files are written out for the future-/past-year case to be consistent with the output files created by Temporal for the base case.

The $STATIC directory for the future case is now a subdirectory of data/run_$ESCEN_$fyr2. However, unlike Figure 3.4, “Locations of intermediate and output files for SMOKE base case, basic configuration”, Figure 3.6, “Locations of intermediate and output files for SMOKE future-/past-year case” indicates that only the PELV file is stored in this directory. This is because SMOKE permits reusing the base-year gridding matrices and speciation matrices for growth and control cases. The growth and control matrices will also be stored in the base-year $STATIC directory. Therefore, the only file that is stored in the future-year $STATIC directory is the PELV file, which can depend on the emissions values in the future year. For example, if the elevated-source selection criteria were based on the future-year daily maximum emissions, then this PELV file would be different than the base-year file. It is therefore most safely stored in a directory that is named with the future-year (or control case) information.

When using controls only (no growth), $SCENARIO and $STATIC will be subdirectories of data/run_$ESCEN_$CNTLCASE. For the case of growth and controls, the directory will be named data/run_$ESCEN_$fyr2_$CNTLCASE.