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allen-dumas-etal_2024_npj

Sensitivity of mesoscale modeling to urban morphological feature inputs and implications for characterizing urban sustainability

Melissa R. Allen-Dumas^1*, Levi T. Sweet-Breu^1,2, Christa M. Brelsford³, Linying Wang⁴, Joshua R. New⁵, Brett C. Bass⁵

¹ Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, OneBethel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA.

² Department of Environmental Science, Baylor University, Waco, TX, 76798, USA.

³ Geospatial Science and Human Security Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, OneBethel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA.

⁴ Arts and Sciences, Earth and Environment, Boston University, 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.

⁵ Electrification and Energy Infrastructure Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, OneBethel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA.

* corresponding author: allenmr (at) ornl.gov

Abstract

We examine the differences in meteorological output from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model run at 270 m horizontal resolution using 10 m, 100 m and 1 km resolution 3D neighborhood morphological inputs and with no morphological inputs. We find that the spatial variability in temperature, humidity, and other meteorological variables across the city can vary with the resolution and the coverage of the 3D urban morphological input, and that larger differences occur between simulations run without 3D morphological input and those run with some type of 3D morphology. We also find that the inclusion of input-building-defined roughness length calculations would improve simulation results further. We show that these inputs produce different patterns of heat wave spatial heterogeneity across the city of Washington, DC. These findings suggest that understanding neighborhood level urban sustainability under extreme heat waves, especially for vulnerable neighborhoods, requires attention to the representation of surface terrain in numerical weather models.

Journal reference

Allen-Dumas, M.R., Sweet-Breu, L.T., Brelsford, C.M. et al. Sensitivity of mesoscale modeling to urban morphological feature inputs and implications for characterizing urban sustainability. npj Urban Sustain 4, 49 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-024-00185-6

Code reference

In main branch: https://github.com/IMMM-SFA/naturf

Ingests shapefiles and turns them into inputs for WRF. Generated both 10 and 100-meter morphologies.

Data reference

Input data

For morphologies, inputs are only shapefiles.

• OpenDataDC (2021) Open Data DC. URL https://opendata.dc.gov/datasets

NARR (North American Reanalysis Dataset) - Input to WRF.

• Mesinger F, DiMego G, Kalnay E, et al (2006) North American Regional Reanalysis. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 87(3):343–360

NUDAPT

• Ching J, Brown M, Burian S, et al (2009) National Urban Database and Access Portal Tool. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90(8):1157– 1168

Output data

Morphologies from NATURF as inputs to WRF. Swapped J. Ching inputs with NATURF inputs.

Allen-Dumas, M. (2024). WRF Output from 270m domain running simulation with no 3D morphology, NUDAPT 3D morphology, 100m resolution 3D morphology and 10m resolution 3D morphology (Version v3) [Data set]. MSD-LIVE Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.57931/2283554

Contributing modeling software

Model	Version	Repository Link	DOI
NATURF	v0.0.0	https://github.com/IMMM-SFA/naturf/tree/main	https://doi.org/10.11578/dc.20220803.4
WRF	v4.1	https://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/download/get_source.html	https://opensky.ucar.edu/islandora/object/opensky:2898

Reproduce my experiment

NATURF v0.0.0 was used to calculate the urban parameters fed to WRF for this experiment. Documentation for NATURF can be found on GitHub or its website.

Reproduce my figures

Use the scripts found in the figures directory to reproduce the figures used in this publication.

Script Name	Description
bias.R	Create figures for model bias
pointcomparison.R	Create figures for point observations at DCA and Arboretum
PBLH.R	Create spatially-averaged figures for PBLH values across domain
summarystats.R	Generate summary statistics, histograms, and Mann Whitney U Tests for time-averaged variables
windroses.R	Create figures wind data
RH.R	Create time-averaged humidity data
HI.R	Create files for heat index figures