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IMPLEMENTATION OF AN URBAN CANOPY PARAMETERIZATION IN MM5
Citation:
Lacser, A. AND T L. Otte. IMPLEMENTATION OF AN URBAN CANOPY PARAMETERIZATION IN MM5. Presented at 4th Symposium on the Urban Environment, Norfolk, VA, May 20-24, 2002.
Impact/Purpose:
This task objective is the development and improvement of state-of-the-science meteorology models and contributing process parameterizations for use in advanced air quality simulation model systems such as the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system and for other modeling studies and situations involving transport and dispersion of pollutants. Components of this work include: (a) improved meteorological and transport modeling, (b) improved meteorological modeling physics, (c) physical modeling of flows- building wakes, complex terrain, urban canyons, (d) modeling of transport and dispersion of specialized situations and (e) develop AERMOD (AMS/EPA Regulatory MODel).
Description:
The Pennsylvania State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (MM5) (Grell et al. 1994) has been modified to include an urban canopy parameterization (UCP) for fine-scale urban simulations (~1-km horizontal grid spacing). The UCP accounts for drag exerted by urban structures, the enhancement of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) especially near the tops of the buildings, and the modification of the energy budget within the urban canopy (i.e., from the surface to the tops of buildings). This UCP is applied to grid cells in MM5 that have a non-zero fraction of urban land use. This refinement of MM5 is targeted to enable the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modeling System (Byun and Ching 1999) to capture the details of pollutant spatial distributions in urban areas.
The information in this manuscript has been prepared under funding by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. It has been subjected to Agency review and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not contitute endorsement or recommendation for use.