Version 5.3 - Last Revision: November 20231
Abstract The HYSPLIT (Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) Model installation, configuration, and operating procedures are reviewed. Examples are given for setting up the model for trajectory and concentration simulations, graphical displays, and creating publication quality illustrations. The model requires specially preformatted meteorological data. Programs that can be used to create the model's meteorological input data are described. The User's Guide has been restructured so that the section titles match the GUI help menu tabs. Although this guide is designed to support the PC and UNIX versions of the program, the executable of the on-line web version is identical. The only differences are the options available through the interface.
Features
The HYsplit (HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) model is a complete system for computing trajectories complex dispersion and deposition simulations using either puff or particle approaches.2 It consists of a modular library structure with main programs for each primary application: trajectories and air concentrations.
Gridded meteorological data, on a latitude-longitude grid or one of three conformal (Polar, Lambert, Mercator) map projections, are required at regular time intervals. The input data are interpolated to an internal sub-grid centered to reduce memory requirements and increase computational speed. Calculations may be performed sequentially or concurrently on multiple meteorological grids, usually specified from fine to coarse resolution.
Air concentration calculations require the definition of the pollutant's emissions and physical characteristics (if deposition is required). When multiple pollutant species are defined, an emission would consist of one particle or puff associated with each pollutant type. Alternately, the mass associated with a single puff may contain several species. The latter approach is used for calculation of chemical transformations when all the species follow the same transport pathway. Some simple chemical transformation routines are provided with the standard model distribution.
The dispersion of a pollutant is calculated by assuming either a Gaussian or Top-Hat horizontal distribution within a puff or from the dispersal of a fixed number of particles. A single released puff will expand until its size exceeds the meteorological grid cell spacing and then it will split into several puffs. An alternate approach combines both puff and particle methods by assuming a puff distribution in the horizontal and particle dispersion in the vertical direction. The resulting calculation may be started with a single particle. As its horizontal distribution expands beyond the meteorological grid size, it will split into multiple particle-puffs, each with their respective fraction of the pollutant mass. In this way, the greater accuracy of the vertical dispersion parameterization of the particle model is combined with the advantage of having an expanding number of particles represent the pollutant distribution as the spatial coverage of the pollutant increases and therefore a single particle can represent increasingly lower concentrations.
Air concentrations are calculated at a specific grid point for puffs and as cell-average concentrations for particles. A concentration grid is defined by latitude-longitude intersections. Simultaneous multiple grids with different horizontal resolutions and temporal averaging periods can be defined for each simulation. Each pollutant species is summed independently on each grid.
The routine meteorological data fields required for the calculations may be obtained from existing archives or from forecast model outputs already formatted for input to HYSPLIT. In addition, several different pre-processor programs are provided to convert NOAA, NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) re-analysis, or ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts) model output fields to a format compatible for direct input to the model. The model's meteorological data structure is compressed and in "direct-access" format. Each time period within the data file contains an index record that includes grid definitions to locate the spatial domain, check-sums for each record to ensure data integrity, variable identification, and level information. These data files require no conversion between computing platforms.
The modeling system includes a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to set up a trajectory, air concentration, or deposition simulation. The post-processing part of the model package incorporates graphical programs to generate multi-color or black and white publication quality Postscript printer graphics.
A complete description of all the equations and model calculation methods for trajectories and air concentrations has been published3 and it is also available on-line. The on-line and the version included with the PC installation contains all the most recent corrections and updates.
Pre-Installation Preparation
There are two installation programs that can be downloaded. The trial version (HYSPLIT_win{32|64}U.exe ~ 70 Mb) available to anyone and a fully functional version (HYSPLIT_win{32|64}R.exe ~ 70 Mb) that requires a user registration through the web site. Both versions identical, except the trial version will not work with forecast meteorological data files. It is assumed that tcl/tk, web browser, and ImageMagick would have already been installed when the registered version is installed on top of the trial version.
The self-installing executable contains only HYSPLIT related programs. No additional software is required to run a simulation if the command line interface is sufficient. To enable the model's GUI, the computer should have Tcl/Tk script language installed. The most recent version can be obtained over the Internet. The installation of Tcl/Tk will result in the association of the .tcl suffix with the Wish executable and all Hysplit GUI scripts will then show the Tk icon. The HYSPLIT GUI has been tested with Tcl/Tk version 8.6.7.
The primary HYSPLIT graphical display programs convert the trajectory and concentration model output files to Postscript format or to Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format as HTML. The HYSPLIT GUI is configured to use SVG that can be viewed directly through web browser. The HYSPLIT code and GUI have been tested with Mozilla Firefox 78.12.0esr. Installation to different default drives, directories, or other versions might require editing the main GUI script's directory pointers (edit file: /guicode/hysplit.tcl or the directory entry in the Advanced-Configuration-Directories menu tab.
The third optional GUI feature is the ability to convert the SVG output file to a different graphical formats using ImageMagick. More information on this software can be found at The HYSPLIT code and GUI have been tested with ImageMagick 6.4. Installation to a different default drives or directories as suggested by the installation process may require editing the main GUI script's directory pointers. Although the setup script tests for the default language, it is possible that installation to non-English default windows operating systems might require additional editing of the directory pointers.
Windows Installation (all operating systems)
HYSPLIT installation to a computer running Windows is provided through a self-installing file. Executables are installed in various directories for trajectories, dispersion, display and manipulation of results, and the creation of input meteorological data files. The trajectory and dispersion model source code is not provided. However all the Fortran source code to create meteorological data files in a format that the model can read are provided in the /data2arl directory. Each subdirectory contains a @readme.txt file with more complete information about the contents of that directory.
During the installation you will be prompted as to the directory location. It is suggested you select a simple default location (such as C:/hysplit). The installation program installs all code and executables to your selected directory, and creates a shortcut on the desktop to /guicode/hysplit.tcl with the "Start In" directory as your selected default. You may have one of two versions of the installation program: HYSPLIT_win{32|64}{R|U}.exe. The suffixes R and U refer to the Registered or Unregistered versions. The two versions are almost identical, except that the unregistered version does not permit calculations with current forecast meteorological data.
HYSPLIT and all the related programs are available for either 32 bit or 64 bit operating systems. The 32 bit version can be installed on either OS, while the 64 bit programs can only be installed on a 64 bit OS. An Apple MAC version is also available (HYSPLIT_mac.dmg).
Installing on top of an old version will bring up a "Continue" or "Cancel" prompt. It is not possible to rename the installation directory at this stage. Rename your old installation prior to installing the new code if you wish to keep the original version.
The installation will contain several sub-directories, some of which are required for model execution, and some of which provide additional documentation and other information. For instance ...
bdyfiles - This directory contains an ASCII version of gridded land use, roughness length, and terrain data. The current file resolution is 360 x 180 at 1 degree. The upper left corner starts at 180W 90N. The files are read by both HYSPLIT executables, hyts_std (trajectory model) and hycs_std (concentration model), from this directory. If not found, the model uses default constant values for land‑use and roughness length. The data structure of these files is defined in the file ASCDATA.CFG, which should be located in either the model's startup or /bdyfiles directory. This file defines the grid system and gives an optional directory location for the landuse and roughness length files. These files may be replaced by higher resolution customized user-created files. However, regardless of their resolution, the model will only apply the data from these files at the same resolution as the input meteorological data grid. More information on the structure of these files can be found in the local @readme.txt file.
data2arl - Current forecast or archive meteorological data can be obtained from the ARL ftp server: ftp://gus.arlhq.noaa.gov /pub/archives (or /forecasts). Older archive data can be ordered from the NCDC (National Climatic Data Center). However if you have access to your own meteorological data or data formatted as GRIB (Gridded Binary), this directory contains various example decoder programs to convert meteorological data in various formats to the format (ARL packed) that HYSPLIT can read. Sample programs include GRIB decoders for ECMWF model fields, NCAR/NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) re-analysis data, and NOAA Aviation, ETA, and Regional Spectral Model files. All the required packing and unpacking subroutines can be found in the /source subdirectories. Sample compilation scripts for Compaq Visual Fortran 6.6 are in some of the decoder directories. More information on how to run these programs can be found in the Meteorology section.
examples - The directory contains several example scripts and batch files that can be used to create automated simulations.
html - Contains all the HELP files in HTML format. These files can be displayed with any browser or interactively through the GUI. The files that are opened in the GUI depend upon the context from which HELP is invoked.
document - This directory contains PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) versions of the User's Guide (all the HTML help files put together in one document) and other documentation such as ARL-224, the principal ARL Technical Memorandum describing the model and equations. This User's Guide (this document) provides detailed instructions in setting up the model, modifications to the Control file to perform various simulations and output interpretation. The @readme.txt file contains additional information about compilation, typical CPU times, and a summary of recent model updates.
exec - Is the directory that contains all the executable programs. The GUI looks for all programs in this directory. When running examples from the command prompt in certain directories, the relative path should be included prior to the executable: "../exec/program.exe"
graphics - There are two types of graphical plotting programs provided in the ../exec directory. Publication quality graphics can be created using the postscript conversion programs, concplot and trajplot, which use a Fortran Postscript library created by Kevin Kohler4. All graphical routines use the map background file arlmap in this directory. The map background file uses a simple ASCII format and contains the world's coastal and political boundaries at relatively coarse resolution. Other higher resolution map background files are available in the /graphics/mapfiles directory or from the HYSPLIT download web page. All graphical programs search the startup directory first for arlmap before going to /graphics, therefore customized maps can be created without changing the HYSPLIT installation structure.
guicode - This directory contains a Tcl/Tk GUI interface source code script for HYSPLIT. The interface is used to set up the input Control file as well as run the graphical output display programs. To use the interface you must first install Tcl/Tk. The upper-level Tcl script is called hysplit.tcl, which calls all other Tcl scripts. Executing this script starts the HYSPLIT GUI. The Desktop shortcut as well as the Start Menu options should point to this script. If the installation program did not properly setup the Desktop, you can manually create a shortcut to the script and edit its properties such that the "Start In" directory is /hysplit. You should also select the HYSPLIT icon from the /icons directory.
working - This is the Hysplit root directory, which contains sample CONTROL files that can be used for initial guidance to set up more complex simulations. These should be loaded into the GUI from the appropriate "Retrieve" menu tab. Examples include:
sample_conc - concentration simulation example from users guide
sample_traj - trajectory simulation example from users guide
The "plants.txt" file contains a sample listing of starting locations that can be opened in the GUI to select from a list of previously determined starting locations. This file can easily be customized. The "tilelist.txt" file contains the approximate coordinates of NCEP's NAM (North America Mesoscale model) tile domains.
Problems
If Tcl/Tk does not exist on your system or there are other problems with the GUI interface, it is very easy to run the sample cases directly in the /working directory by running the batch file "run_{model}.bat" If the sample simulation works well, then it is only necessary to manually edit the CONTROL file to try out different simulation variations. The CONTROL file options are explained in more detail in the individual Trajectory and Concentration Setup sections.
In general, premature termination during the model initialization phase will result in messages to standard output. However after the model has started, fatal, diagnostic, and progress notification messages are written to a file called Message. If the model output is not what you expected, first check the Control file to determine if the input setup is what is desired, then check the Message file for indication of abnormal performance. These files are always written to the model's startup directory - /Hysplit if the model is run from the GUI. At times error messages may be lost in the display buffer after premature termination. In this case the model should be rerun from the command line window for proper display of all standard output messages. The "Advanced" menu contains a the View MESSAGES tab that displays the last MESSAGE file for viewing. Other features of the advanced menu are used to modify the model's configuration file and are explained in more detail in that section. Modifications to these parameters require a complete understanding of the model's design and operation.
References
[1]Draxler, R.R., 1999, HYSPLIT_4 User's Guide, NOAA Technical Memorandum ERL ARL-230, June, 35 pp.
[2]Draxler, R.R., and G.D. Hess, 1998, An overview of the Hysplit_4 modelling system for trajectories, dispersion, and deposition, Australian Meteorological Magazine, 47, 295-308.
[3]Draxler, R.R., and G.D. Hess, 1997, Description of the Hysplit_4 modeling system, NOAA Technical Memorandum ERL ARL-224, December, 24p.
[4]Stein, A.F., R.R. Draxler, G.D. Rolph, B.J.B. Stunder, M.D. Cohen, and F. Ngan , 2015. NOAA’s HYSPLIT atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling system, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 96, 2059–2077. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00110.1
[5]PSPLOT libraries can be found at https://hcas.nova.edu/tools-and-resources/psplot/index.html and were created by Kevin Kohler (kevin@ocean.nova.edu).