Distributed urban drag parameterization for sub‐kilometre scale numerical weather prediction
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A recently developed, height-distributed urban drag parametrization is tested with the London Model, a sub-kilometre resolution version of the Met Office Unified Model over Greater London. The distributed-drag parametrization requires vertical morphology profiles in the form of height-distributed frontal-area functions, which capture the full extent and variability of building heights. London's morphology profiles are calculated and parametrized by an exponential distribution with the ratio of maximum to mean building height as the parameter. A case study evaluates the differences between the new distributed-drag scheme and the current London Model setup using the MORUSES urban land-surface model. The new drag parametrization shows increased horizontal spatial variability in total surface stress, identifying densely built-up areas, high-rise building clusters, parks, and the river. Effects on the wind speed in the lower levels include a lesser gradient and more heterogeneous wind profiles, extended wakes downwind of the city centre, and vertically growing perturbations that suggest the formation of internal boundary layers. The surface sensible heat fluxes are underpredicted, which is attributed to difficulties coupling the distributed momentum exchange with the surface-based heat exchange.
Date Issued
2021-10
Date Acceptance
2021-08-22
Citation
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2021, 147 (741), pp.3940-3956
ISSN
0035-9009
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
3940
End Page
3956
Journal / Book Title
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
Volume
147
Issue
741
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.4162
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
drag parametrization
MORUSES
regional and mesoscale modelling
urban canopy model
urban meteorology
urban morphology analysis
ENVIRONMENT SIMULATOR JULES
ENERGY BUDGET SCHEME
MODEL DESCRIPTION
PART II
IMPLEMENTATION
ROUGHNESS
FLUXES
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
0401 Atmospheric Sciences
0405 Oceanography
0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-09-14