The efficient urban canopy dependency parametrization (SURY) v1.0 for
atmospheric modelling: description and application with the COSMO-CLM model
for a Belgian summer

Wouters, Hendrik; Demuzere, Matthias; Blahak, Ulrich; Fortuniak, Krzysztof; Maiheu, Bino; Camps, Johan; Tielemans, Daniël; Lipzig, Nicole Van

doi:10.5194/gmd-9-3027-2016

Cited by 115 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 98 publications

(153 reference statements)

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“…The bulk urban canopy model (UCM) called TERRA_URB [60,61] coupled to COSMO-CLM was used to simulate the urban climate. To take into account the urban physics in terms of surface energy exchanges including the influence of street-canyon geometry, TERRA_URB provides corrections of the surface parameters (roughness length, albedo, emissivity, heat capacity, etc.)…”

Section: Urban Canopy Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To take into account the urban physics in terms of surface energy exchanges including the influence of street-canyon geometry, TERRA_URB provides corrections of the surface parameters (roughness length, albedo, emissivity, heat capacity, etc.) using the semi-empirical urban canopy dependencies [61]. Instead of explicitly calculating the urban physical processes (e.g., the reduced-albedo effect from multiple-reflections inside a street canyon), they are implicitly taken into account in the land-surface parameters in accordance to detailed observational studies, modeling experiments and available parameter inventories.…”

Section: Urban Canopy Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Megacity-Induced Mesoclimatic Effects in the Lower Atmosphere: A Modeling Study for Multiple Summers over Moscow, Russia

et al. 2018

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Urbanization leads to distinct meteorological features of urban environments, and one the best-known is the urban heat island (UHI) effect. For megacities, these features become mesoscale phenomena (scale ≥ 10 km) that are amplified by the tropospheric feedbacks, and have substantial implications on human well-being. For the first time, a three-dimensional statistical description of the megacity-induced meteorological effects extending towards the lower troposphere for summer is acquired on a quasi-climatological timescale (a decade) based on high-resolution (1 km) simulations for Moscow with the COSMO-CLM model with and without its urban canopy model TERRA_URB. Our results confirm the features from previous observational and modeling studies, including the UHI itself, the cooling effect above established by the cross-over effect, the urban dry/moist islands and the urban breeze circulation. Particularly, the UHI shows a strong diurnal variation in terms of intensity and vertical extent between daytime (≈0.5 K/≈1.5 km) and nighttime (>3 K/≈150 m). We have discovered a systematic veering in the downwind shift of the UHI spatial pattern established by the Coriolis effect, and an enhanced stable stratification of the rural surroundings established by the urban plumes further downwind. Finally, extending the analysis to multiple summers demonstrates a substantial increase in summer precipitation (up to +25%) over the city center and its leeward side. These urban-caused mesoclimatic effects need to be taken into account in weather and climate services, including the design of future megacities.

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Section: Urban Canopy Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Urban Canopy Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Megacity-Induced Mesoclimatic Effects in the Lower Atmosphere: A Modeling Study for Multiple Summers over Moscow, Russia

et al. 2018

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“…Those classes describe the climate relevant aspects of the urban environment with ranges of values, which are implementable in UCMs (Table ). Although mean values of those ranges already give a good approximation of the climate impact of heterogeneous urban landscapes (Alexander et al ., ; Brousse et al ., ; Wouters et al ., ), the use of more detailed data sets to improve the definition of those typologies might provide more accurate results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Implications of employing detailed urban canopy parameters for mesoscale climate modelling: a comparison between WUDAPT and GIS databases over Vienna, Austria

Hammerberg

Brousse

Martilli

et al. 2018

Intl Journal of Climatology

126

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ABSTRACT:One of the major obstacles to using numerical weather prediction models for guidance on mitigating urbanization's impact on local and regional climate is the lack of detailed and model ready morphological data at urban scale. The World Urban Database and Access Portal Tool (WUDAPT) is a recent project developed to extract climate relevant information on urban areas, in the form of local climate zones (LCZs), out of remote sensing imagery. This description of the urban landscape has been tested and used for parameterization of different urban canopy models (UCM) for mesoscale studies. As detailed information is usually bounded within cities' centres, crowdsourced and remote sensing data offer the possibility to move beyond the old barriers of urban climate investigations by studying the full range of variation from the urban core to the periphery and its related impacts on local climate. Thus, for this study we sought to compare the relative impact of using the WUDAPT methodology versus a simplified definition of the urban morphology extracted out of detailed GIS information to initialize a regional weather model and compare the output against official and crowdsourced weather station networks. A case study over Vienna, Austria was conducted using the weather research forecasting (WRF) model, coupled with the building effect parameterization and building energy models (BEP-BEM) in five distinct seasonal periods. Results demonstrated that using detailed GIS data to derive morphological descriptions of LCZs for mesoscale studies provided only a marginal overall improvement over using the default WUDAPT parameters based on the ranges proposed by Stewart and Oke (2012). The findings also highlighted the importance of developing techniques that are better at capturing the morphological heterogeneity across the entire urban landscape and thus improve our understandings of UCM performance over urban areas.

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“…Here we project temperature‐based urban heat stress under global warming with a unique combination of CPM urban climate downscaling [ Wouters et al , ; Rockel et al , ], ensemble information from GCMs [ Taylor et al , ; Willems and Vrac , ], and sociodemographic land use change modeling [ White and Engelen , ]. The CPM climate simulations are performed covering continuous periods of 35 years over an extended heterogeneous urban area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat stress increase under climate change twice as large in cities as in rural areas: A study for a densely populated midlatitude maritime region

Wouters

Ridder

Poelmans

et al. 2017

Geophysical Research Letters

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161

106

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Urban areas are usually warmer than their surrounding natural areas, an effect known as the urban heat island effect. As such, they are particularly vulnerable to global warming and associated increases in extreme temperatures. Yet ensemble climate‐model projections are generally performed on a scale that is too coarse to represent the evolution of temperatures in cities. Here, for the first time, we combine unprecedented long‐term (35 years) urban climate model integrations at the convection‐permitting scale (2.8 km resolution) with information from an ensemble of general circulation models to assess temperature‐based heat stress for Belgium, a densely populated midlatitude maritime region. We discover that the heat stress increase toward the mid‐21st century is twice as large in cities compared to their surrounding rural areas. The exacerbation is driven by the urban heat island itself, its concurrence with heat waves, and urban expansion. Cities experience a heat stress multiplication by a factor 1.4 and 15 depending on the scenario. Remarkably, the future heat stress surpasses everywhere the urban hot spots of today. Our results demonstrate the need to combine information from climate models, acting on different scales, for climate change risk assessment in heterogeneous regions. Moreover, these results highlight the necessity for adaptation to increasing heat stress, especially in urban areas.

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The efficient urban canopy dependency parametrization (SURY) v1.0 for atmospheric modelling: description and application with the COSMO-CLM model for a Belgian summer

Cited by 115 publications

References 98 publications

Megacity-Induced Mesoclimatic Effects in the Lower Atmosphere: A Modeling Study for Multiple Summers over Moscow, Russia

Megacity-Induced Mesoclimatic Effects in the Lower Atmosphere: A Modeling Study for Multiple Summers over Moscow, Russia

Implications of employing detailed urban canopy parameters for mesoscale climate modelling: a comparison between WUDAPT and GIS databases over Vienna, Austria

Heat stress increase under climate change twice as large in cities as in rural areas: A study for a densely populated midlatitude maritime region

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