High Resolution WRF Simulations for the Tel‐Aviv Metropolitan Area Reveal the Urban Fingerprint in the Sea‐Breeze Hodograph

Abstract

We implement and verify for the first time four Weather Research and Forecasting model urban configurations, focused on the coastal metropolitan area of Tel‐Aviv (MTA) using updated landuse and morphological maps. We analyze the mesoscale summertime flow and the urban canopy (UC) role in the occurrence of different hodograph dynamics observed within MTA at night. These events may be significant in air quality research. The four configurations—bulk (MM), single‐layer (SLUCM), multilayer (BEP), and BEP coupled with the building energy model—reproduce the observed diurnal temperature and wind cycles, with similar 10‐m wind direction bias and RMSE ( ≲ 15° and ∼30°, respectively), with preference for MM and SLUCM at night. However, the SLUCM shows the lowest skill for the 10‐m wind speed (WS) (bias and RMSE ≥ 1 m s−1), and the BEP shows the largest underestimation of the 2‐m temperature, ∼−2.5 °C. In the SLUCM, the WS increases over an UC and with increasing building heights. These results call for a reexamination of the SLUCM WS parameterization. The simulations show that at night, a convergence line (CL) builds up with the urban heat island, downstream of the NW flow. West of the CL, the wind continues flowing from the sea, and rotates anticlockwise to form a nonelliptical sea‐breeze hodograph. Removing MTA UC restores an elliptical hodograph. East of the CL, the UC supports an elliptical hodograph with a clockwise rotation through the NE sector, previously reported as dynamically unstable. We expect such wind hodograph dynamics within similar coastal metropolitan areas.

High Spatiotemporal Resolution Planetary Boundary Layer Dynamics Across the Israeli Coast—Mountain—Valley Terrain Unraveled by WRF Simulations

“…Moreover, no apparent difference in the daily BLH evolution across the iCMV is indicated between the MYNN2 and the MYNN2_noTLV configurations. Lastly, no significant difference in the onset of the sea breeze was indicated in a previous study between a "noTLV" configuration and several advanced urban canopy configurations (Avisar et al, 2021). At most, the nighttime BLH above the coastal urban region is lower relative to the basic configuration, as the effect of the urban heat island is much more profound during nighttime (Avisar et al, 2021).…”

“…In the second, the coastal metropolitan area of Tel‐Aviv is replaced by a mixture of open shrublands and croplands, as in Avisar et al. (2021).…”

“…That way, the urban land use is treated parametrically in a similar way to any other land use, but with the urban parameters for the roughness, albedo, etc. (Avisar et al., 2021; Chen et al., 2011). We use updated MODIS‐based local landuse data that was provided by Tel‐Aviv University.…”

“…In the first, the urban canopy of JrM is replaced by a mixture of croplands, woody savannas, and open shrublands. In the second, the coastal metropolitan area of Tel-Aviv is replaced by a mixture of open shrublands and croplands, as in Avisar et al (2021).…”

Profiling the Planetary Boundary Layer Wind with a StreamLine XR Doppler LiDAR: Comparison to In-Situ Observations and WRF Model Simulations

“…The three domains with horizontal grid sizes of 13.5, 4.5 and 1.5 km are shown in Appendix A, Figure A1. The model configuration including vertical grid, physical parameterizations, numerical options and initialization time was chosen as in the reference runs in [37]. The ERA5 global reanalysis [31] was used for initial and boundary conditions.…”