Executive Editor Comment on "Efficiently modelling urban heat storage: an interface conduction scheme in the aTEB urban land surface model"

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Kerkweg
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Heat Storage ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Editor Comment ◽  
Executive Editor ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
Interface Conduction

scholarly journals Efficiently modelling urban heat storage: an interface conduction scheme in an urban land surface model (aTEB v2.0)

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 991-1007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew J. Lipson ◽  
Melissa A. Hart ◽  
Marcus Thatcher
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Exact Solutions ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Heat Storage ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
High Level ◽  
Interface Conduction

Abstract. Intercomparison studies of models simulating the partitioning of energy over urban land surfaces have shown that the heat storage term is often poorly represented. In this study, two implicit discrete schemes representing heat conduction through urban materials are compared. We show that a well-established method of representing conduction systematically underestimates the magnitude of heat storage compared with exact solutions of one-dimensional heat transfer. We propose an alternative method of similar complexity that is better able to match exact solutions at typically employed resolutions. The proposed interface conduction scheme is implemented in an urban land surface model and its impact assessed over a 15-month observation period for a site in Melbourne, Australia, resulting in improved overall model performance for a variety of common material parameter choices and aerodynamic heat transfer parameterisations. The proposed scheme has the potential to benefit land surface models where computational constraints require a high level of discretisation in time and space, for example at neighbourhood/city scales, and where realistic material properties are preferred, for example in studies investigating impacts of urban planning changes.

scholarly journals Efficiently modelling urban heat storage: an interface conduction scheme in the aTEB urban land surface model

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew J. Lipson ◽  
Melissa A. Hart ◽  
Marcus Thatcher
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Exact Solutions ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Heat Storage ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
High Level ◽  
Interface Conduction

Abstract. Intercomparison studies of models simulating the partitioning of energy over urban land surfaces have shown the heat storage term is often poorly represented. In this study, two implicit discrete schemes representing heat conduction through urban materials are compared. We show that a well-established method of representing conduction systematically underestimates the magnitude of heat storage compared with exact solutions of one-dimensional heat transfer. We propose an alternative method of similar complexity that is better able to match exact solutions at typically employed resolutions. The proposed interface conduction scheme is implemented in an urban land surface model and its impact assessed over a 15-month observation period for a site in Melbourne, Australia, resulting in improved overall model performance for a variety material parameter choices and aerodynamic heat transfer parameterisations. The proposed scheme has the potential to benefit land surface models where computational constraints require a high level of discretisation in time and space, for example at neighbourhood/city scales, and where realistic material properties are preferred, for example in studies investigating impacts of urban planning changes.

scholarly journals A Python-enhanced urban land surface model SuPy (SUEWS in Python, v2019.2): development, deployment and demonstration

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Sun ◽  
Sue Grimmond
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Mass Fluxes ◽  
Online Tutorials ◽  
Urban Energy

Abstract. Accurate and agile modelling of the climate of cities is essential for urban climate services. The Surface Urban Energy and Water balance Scheme (SUEWS) is a state-of-the-art, widely used, urban land surface model (ULSM) which simulates urban-atmospheric interactions by quantifying the energy, water and mass fluxes. Using SUEWS as the computation kernel, SuPy (SUEWS in Python), stands on the Python-based data stack to streamline the pre-processing, computation and post-processing that are involved in the common modelling-centred urban climate studies. This paper documents the development of SuPy, which includes the SUEWS interface modification, F2PY (Fortran to Python) configuration and Python frontend implementation. In addition, the deployment of SuPy via PyPI (Python Package Index) is introduced along with the automated workflow for cross-platform compilation. This makes SuPy available for all mainstream operating systems (Windows, Linux, and macOS). Furthermore, three online tutorials in Jupyter notebooks are provided to users of different levels to become familiar with SuPy urban climate modelling. The SuPy package represents a significant enhancement that supports existing and new model applications, reproducibility, and enhanced functionality.

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