Chapter 6. SMOKE Input Files

6.1. Overview
6.2. Inventory Files
6.3. Temporal Allocation Files
6.4. Spatial Allocation Files
6.5. Chemical speciation
6.6. Growth and Controls Files
6.7. Special Merging Files
6.8. Meteorology Files
6.9. Source-Specific files
6.10. Other Support Files

6.1. Overview

This chapter contains format information for all input files used by SMOKE. Chapter 7, SMOKE Intermediate Files and Chapter 8, SMOKE Output Files provide documentation on SMOKE’s intermediate and output file formats.

In this overview section, we first provide a few important notes about file formats (Section 6.1.1, “General notes about file formats”, and then discuss where to put SMOKE input files (Section 1, “Where to put SMOKE input files”). Section 2, “SMOKE input file list” summarizes all the input files needed by SMOKE, organized by function.

The remaining sections in this chapter are broken down as follows:

6.1.1. General notes about file formats

  • In the tables used to describe the file format for each file, the “Position” column lists a single number or a range of numbers.

    When there is a letter or a single number in the “Position” column, this indicates that the file must be list-directed, and therefore the fields on each line need to be delimited by a space, comma, or semicolon. If there are fields that have embedded spaces, commas, or semicolons in a list-directed file, these entries must be surrounded by single or double quotation marks to prevent SMOKE from treating those characters as delimiters.

    When a range of numbers is listed in the “Position” column, ie. (1-3), this indicates that the file is column-specific, which means that the entry must be placed exactly within the columns listed.

  • For all cross-reference files (e.g. AGREF, MGREF, GSREF), all of the source-characteristic fields are optional. For example, it is permissible to provide only the SCC for use in matching a profile to a source.

    For list-directed files, if there are source characteristic fields that will not be used (such as country/state/county code) that come before the required fields in the file, these must be filled in with a zero or -9. If there are unused fields that come after the required fields in the file, they can be left blank.

    For column-specific formats, the optional entries can be left blank or set to -9 when they are not used.

  • Nearly all input files support full-line and trailing comments. If the first character on a line is a pound sign (#) then the line is treated as a comment. Any characters after an exclamation point (!) are treated as a comment.