Enhancing Hydrologic Modelling in the Coupled Weather Research and Forecasting–Urban Modelling System

Urbanization modifies surface energy and water budgets, and has significant impacts on local and regional hydroclimate. In recent decades, a number of urban canopy models have been developed and implemented into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to capture urban land-surface processes...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Boundary-layer meteorology 2015-04, Vol.155 (1), p.87-109
Main Authors: Yang, Jiachuan, Wang, Zhi-Hua, Chen, Fei, Miao, Shiguang, Tewari, Mukul, Voogt, James A., Myint, Soe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropogenic factors
Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution
Atmospheric Sciences
Canopies
Climate models
Construction
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Energy efficiency
Evaporation
Force and energy
Green buildings
Green roofs
Hydroclimate
Hydrologic modeling
Hydrology
Latent heat
Meteorological research
Meteorology
Modelling
Numerical weather forecasting
Roofs
Sensible heat
Surface temperature
Urban areas
Urban climatology
Urban heat islands
Urbanization
Weather
Weather forecasting
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Summary:Urbanization modifies surface energy and water budgets, and has significant impacts on local and regional hydroclimate. In recent decades, a number of urban canopy models have been developed and implemented into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to capture urban land-surface processes. Most of these models are inadequate due to the lack of realistic representation of urban hydrological processes. Here, we implement physically-based parametrizations of urban hydrological processes into the single layer urban canopy model in the WRF model. The new single-layer urban canopy model features the integration of, (1) anthropogenic latent heat, (2) urban irrigation, (3) evaporation from paved surfaces, and (4) the urban oasis effect. The new WRF–urban modelling system is evaluated against field measurements for four different cities; results show that the model performance is substantially improved as compared to the current schemes, especially for latent heat flux. In particular, to evaluate the performance of green roofs as an urban heat island mitigation strategy, we integrate in the urban canopy model a multilayer green roof system, enabled by the physical urban hydrological schemes. Simulations show that green roofs are capable of reducing surface temperature and sensible heat flux as well as enhancing building energy efficiency.
ISSN:0006-8314
1573-1472
DOI:10.1007/s10546-014-9991-6