Evaluation of the WRF‐Urban Modeling System Coupled to Noah and Noah‐MP Land Surface Models Over a Semiarid Urban Environment. Issue 5 (1st March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Salamanca, Francisco; Zhang, Yizhou; Barlage, Michael; Chen, Fei; Mahalov, Alex; Miao, Shiguang
• Is Part Of: Journal of geophysical research. Volume 123:Issue 5(2018)
• Page Start: 2387
• Page End: 2408
• Publication Date: 2018-03-01
• Subjects: urban canopy models -- land surface models -- surface skin temperature -- urban heat island -- mesoscale modeling; Atmospheric physics -- Periodicals; Geophysics -- Periodicals; 551.5
• DOI: 10.1002/2018JD028377
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2169-897X

Abstract

Abstract: We have augmented the existing capabilities of the integrated Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)‐urban modeling system by coupling three urban canopy models (UCMs) available in the WRF model with the new community Noah with multiparameterization options (Noah‐MP) land surface model (LSM). The WRF‐urban modeling system's performance has been evaluated by conducting six numerical experiments at high spatial resolution (1 km horizontal grid spacing) during a 15 day clear‐sky summertime period for a semiarid urban environment. To assess the relative importance of representing urban surfaces, three different urban parameterizations are used with the Noah and Noah‐MP LSMs, respectively, over the two major cities of Arizona: Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas. Our results demonstrate that Noah‐MP reproduces somewhat better than Noah the daily evolution of surface skin temperature and near‐surface air temperature (especially nighttime temperature) and wind speed. Concerning the urban areas, bulk urban parameterization overestimates nighttime 2 m air temperature compared to the single‐layer and multilayer UCMs that reproduce more accurately the daily evolution of near‐surface air temperature. Regarding near‐surface wind speed, only the multilayer UCM was able to reproduce realistically the daily evolution of wind speed, although maximum winds were slightly overestimated, while both the single‐layer and bulk urban parameterizations overestimated wind speed considerably. Based on these results, this paper demonstrates that the new community Noah‐MP LSM coupled to an UCM is a promising physics‐based predictive modeling tool for urban applications. Key Points: We have augmented the existing capabilities of the integrated WRF‐urban modeling system by coupling three UCMs with the Noah‐MP LSM To assess the relative importance of representing urban surfaces, three different urban parameterizations are used with the Noah and Noah‐MP LSMs Our results demonstrate that Noah‐MP LSM reproduces somewhat better than Noah LSM the daily evolution of surface skin temperature