Modeling coupled atmospheric-hydrological processes in urban areas
Abstract
This work demonstrates the performance of a model for fully coupled atmospheric-hydrological processes in urban areas. The model couples WRF-PUCM (Princeton Urban Canopy Model) with WRF-ParFlow (PFWRF) to construct PFWRF-PUCM. Here we present a test run of the coupled model for Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. We compared the soil moisture and temperature outputs at the land surface from WRF-PUCM and PFWRF-PUCM to identify the differences caused by underrepresentation of groundwater processes in WRF-PUCM. Although soil moisture distribution was the same at the beginning of simulations, the WRF-PUCM soil moisture evolves to values that are higher than those in PFWRF-PUCM. Lower soil moisture availability leads to lower latent heat and higher sensible heat. This is consistent with previous studies that found similar differences between PFWRF and WRF. Surface temperature stays the same from beginning of the simulation up to day three. At day five of the simulations when soil moisture levels increased drastically in WRF-PUCM simulation in response to rain, the area-averaged skin temperature becomes higher all over the domain for daytime (noon) in the PFWRF-PUCM simulation. In contrast, at midnight, area-averaged surface temperature is lower in PFWRF-PUCM. Moreover, in the last two days, WRF-PUCM shows a higher gradient of temperature from urban to rural areas, emphasizing the role of subsurface flow dynamics in the spatial distribution of temperature across urban vs. rural areas. Currently, we are developing comparisons between WRF-PUCM and PFWRF-PUCM at very high-spatial resolutions ( 30 m), using the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) mode to evaluate the role of fine-scale variability in urban properties and processes on atmospheric-hydrologic interactions in urban areas. We expect that PUCM will have a significant impact on simulating urban processes at high resolution by incorporating parameterizations designed for urban atmospheric-land surface processes at these scales.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.H41Q2358T
- Keywords:
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- 0493 Urban systems;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1847 Modeling;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1878 Water/energy interactions;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGY