High-resolution Urban Meteorological Data
Authors
- Elie Bou-Zeid – Princeton University
- Jiachuan Yang – Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Purpose
The meteorological dataset is simulated result using the advanced research version 3.5.1 of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. It provides complete surface and near surface atmospheric fields.
Description
For land surface parameterization options, the Noah land surface model is used for non-urban terrain and an enhanced single-layer urban canopy model is adopted for urban land surfaces following previous studies (Li and Bou-Zeid, 2014; Yang et al., 2015). Simulations use the Land-use land-cover data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2011. A mosaic approach was used to solve for multiple land use categories at every WRF grid (Li et al., 2013).
The meteorological dataset has a horizontal resolution of 1 km with an output frequency of 1 hour. The simulation time for individual metropolitan areas is listed in Table 1, and it refers to a “typical” condition where mean daily maximum and minimum air temperatures close to the 1981-2010 climate normal released by the National Centers for Environmental Information for that metropolis. Detailed information of available meteorological variables is summarized in Table 2.
Green roof and cool roof scenarios: Scenarios of green roofs (GR) and cool roofs (CR) are designed based on the land use planning and development map for each studied metropolitan area. We assumed a 25% areal coverage on building rooftops over three (local, city, and regional) plausible areas. Green roofs were well irrigated with an evapotranspiration efficiency of 75% (of their potential evaporation rate) in all runs to exclude the impact of water availability. Thermal properties of different roofs were (1) conventional roof: albedo (a) = 0.3, thermal conductivity (k) = 1.0 W m–1 K–1, heat capacity (C) = 2.0 MJ m–3 K–1; (2) green roof: a = 0.3, k = 1.1 W m–1 K–1, C = 1.9 MJ m–3 K–1; and (3) cool roof: a = 0.7, k = 1.0 W m–1 K–1, C = 2.0 MJ m–3 K–1.
Attributes
Table 1. Climate classification and simulated scenarios for studied metropolitan areas.
Metropolitan area Köppen climate classification Scenario Simulation time
Chicago Continental Summer control run 2013, Jul 15 – Aug 14
Summer local GR run
Summer city GR run
Summer regional GR run
Summer local CR run
Summer city CR run
Summer regional CR run
Los Angeles Temperate Summer control run 2014, Jul 15 – Aug 14
Summer local GR run
Summer city GR run
Summer regional GR run
Miami Tropical Summer control run 2014, Jul 15 – Aug 14
Summer local GR run
Summer city GR run
Summer regional GR run
New York City Temperate Summer control run 2014, Jul 15 – Aug 14
Summer local GR run
Summer city GR run
Summer regional GR run
Summer local CR run
Summer city CR run
Summer regional CR run
Phoenix Dry Summer control run 2014, Jul 15 – Aug 14
Summer local GR run
Summer city GR run
Summer regional GR run
Pittsburgh Continental Summer control run 2013, Jul 15 – Aug 14
Summer local GR run
Summer city GR run
Summer regional GR run
