22nd annual CMAS Conference celebrated milestones and giants of the field
January 3, 2024
The Community Modeling and Analysis System (CMAS) Center hosted its 22nd annual CMAS Conference Oct. 16-18, 2023 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Friday Conference Center. The event featured a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modeling System and the lives of two giants of the CMAS community who passed away this year, Adel Hanna and Jason Ching. The CMAS Center, funded by the U.S. EPA, has been housed at the UNC Institute for the Environment’s Center for Environmental Modeling for Policy Development since 2003.
“This is a milestone year for the CMAS community,” said Sarav Arunachalam, deputy director of the UNC Institute for the Environment and director of the Center for Environmental Modeling for Policy Development. “On the one hand, we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the CMAQ model and the various advances we have had in addressing air pollution issues both within and outside the U.S. during this period through its scientific advances, and on other we are also remembering and recognizing the contributions to this community by two of its pillars – Adel Hanna and Jason Ching. I am grateful for all their contributions to the CMAS Center, and they will be missed.”
View slideshow from event.
Mike Piehler, director of the UNC Institute for the Environment gave the opening remarks, welcoming more than 200 air quality scientists from around the world to share and learn about the latest developments in the air quality modeling field. Xiong Liu, from Harvard & Smithsonian, discussed air quality observations from space using NASA’s new Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) mission, which is expected to provide data at an unprecedented resolution in space and time. Christine Wiedinmyer from the University of Colorado at Boulder explored wildfire emissions, a growing hazard for air quality and public health. Alice Gilliland and Chet Wayland of the U.S. EPA lead a tribute session on the CMAQ model, marking the 25th year milestone. Other conference topics spanned environmental justice issues, machine learning, dust events, air quality policies, human health impacts and a host of others. See full agenda.
The celebration of CMAQ’s milestone was marked by a plenary session with keynotes and a panel session featuring several members of the original development team. The CMAQ modeling system was publicly launched June 30, 1998 and has been continuously developed ever since as an open-source framework to model ozone, particulates and various other toxics in the air. The system is used by a multitude of governmental agencies at the national, state and local levels, the private sector, academia and international entities. The National Weather Service, Centers for Disease Control and U.S. EPA use the model to inform air quality forecasting, making connections to public health and for various policy decisions such as new emissions standards for heavy duty trucks rulemaking, for example.
Adel Hanna, who was the founding director of UNC’s CEMPD and CMAS Center, was remembered by colleagues for his kind and gentle, but effective leadership. Hanna passed away in April 2023 at the age of 77. Hanna’s sons and their wives joined the CMAS community for a luncheon honoring the life and career of Hanna, where colleagues delivered heartfelt homages to attendees. Read more about Hanna’s life and career.
In honor of Hanna’s contributions to CMAS, the student poster competition at this year’s conference was renamed to the Hanna student poster awards, and three students were recognized to have the best student posters by a panel of judges from the CMAS External Advisory Committee (EAC). Archit Gupta (Nanyang Technological University Singapore) was our 1st place winner, and Surendra Kunwar (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Aryiana Moore (Georgia Institute of Technology) tied for 2nd place
Jason Ching, another longtime member of the CMAS community and senior research collaborator at the Institute, developed the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT), a community-based, collaborative project. Ching was extensively involved in the CMAS community and was planning to co-chair a session on WUDAPT for the CMAS Conference before his unexpected death at the age of 82. Ching was on professional travel at the time of his passing for the Urban Climate Conference in Australia where he was awarded the Luke Howard Award for lifetime contribution to the development of the field. Ching also was instrumental in the development of the CMAQ model, co-authoring the first publication with science algorithms of the CMAQ model. Ching had a session dedicated to him on WUDAPT. Ching’s family was at his tribute luncheon where colleagues remembered him with stories of his humor and brilliance. Watch the tribute video for Ching.
For more than two decades, the CMAS Center has supported more than 10,000 users across the globe. The Center serves as a hub for developing air quality models, educating and training users, and fostering the growth of both the developer and user communities.
The CMAS Center maintains a data warehouse where users can access and share datasets on Google Drive and on the AWS Open Data Program. Community members also have access to the CMAS Discourse Forum where they can ask questions about modeling software. Experienced users can respond with advice, cultivating the learning and collaborative aspect of the modeling community. Kai (Ryan) Wu, a Ph.D. student at the University of California at Irvine, was also recognized at this year’s conference with the “Most Active User” award, for being the most active user for engaging with other members of the user community on the Discourse Forum.
Besides the annual CMAS Conference held each fall in Chapel Hill, the CMAS Center hosts conferences in Asia and South America every other year. Over the summer, members of the CMAS community met in Japan for the CMAS Asia Pacific Conference, which also included a 2-day training. The 5th CMAS South America Conference and Training on SMOKE and CMAQ will take place at the University of São Paulo in Brazil in June 2024.
Earlier in 2023, the CMAS Center and the Institute for the Environment also hosted the 39th annual International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and its Applications (ITM). ITM, a prominent international forum for discussing developments in air pollution modeling, began in 1969 under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Committee on Challenges of Modern Society and became independent of NATO in 2013. Read more about the ITM Conference.
The Community Modeling and Analysis System (CMAS) Center was featured in a special issue of EM Magazine in January 2024, a monthly publication of the professional organization Air & Waste Management Association. The issue also celebrates the 25th anniversary of CMAQ, an air quality modeling program supported by the CMAS Center.
For more information about software releases and future conferences, visit the CMAS website https://cmascenter.org/ or follow CMAS on Twitter @CMAS_Center.