Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban‐PLUMBER project: Phase 1 results
Abstract
Accurately predicting weather and climate in cities is critical for safeguarding human health and strengthening urban resilience. Multimodel evaluations can lead to model improvements; however, there have been no major intercomparisons of urban‐focussed land surface models in over a decade. Here, in Phase 1 of the Urban‐PLUMBER project, we evaluate the ability of 30 land surface models to simulate surface energy fluxes critical to atmospheric meteorological and air quality simulations. We establish minimum and upper performance expectations for participating models using simple information‐limited models as benchmarks. Compared with the last major model intercomparison at the same site, we find broad improvement in the current cohort's predictions of short‐wave radiation, sensible and latent heat fluxes, but little or no improvement in long‐wave radiation and momentum fluxes. Models with a simple urban representation (e.g., ‘slab’ schemes) generally perform well, particularly when combined with sophisticated hydrological/vegetation models. Some mid‐complexity models (e.g., ‘canyon’ schemes) also perform well, indicating efforts to integrate vegetation and hydrology processes have paid dividends. The most complex models that resolve three‐dimensional interactions between buildings in general did not perform as well as other categories. However, these models also tended to have the simplest representations of hydrology and vegetation. Models without any urban representation (i.e., vegetation‐only land surface models) performed poorly for latent heat fluxes, and reasonably for other energy fluxes at this suburban site. Our analysis identified widespread human errors in initial submissions that substantially affected model performances. Although significant efforts are applied to correct these errors, we conclude that human factors are likely to influence results in this (or any) model intercomparison, particularly where participating scientists have varying experience and first languages. These initial results are for one suburban site, and future phases of Urban‐PLUMBER will evaluate models across 20 sites in different urban and regional climate zones.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Oct 25, 2023
- Source ID
- 10.1002/qj.4589
Entities
People
- Alberto Martilli
- Andrew Coutts
- Andrés Simón‐Moral
- Andy J. Pitman
- Aristofanis Tsiringakis
- Aude Lemonsu
- Beom‐soon Han
- Chenghao Wang
- Cécile De Munck
- David Meyer
- Doo‐il Lee
- Elie Bou-Zeid
- Gab Abramowitz
- Gabriele Manoli
- Gert-Jan Steeneveld
- Hiroaki Kondo
- Joe Mcnorton
- Jong-Jin Baik
- Keith W. Oleson
- Kerry Nice
- Krzysztof Fortuniak
- Lewis Blunn
- Marcus Thatcher
- Margaret A. Hendry
- Martin Best
- Martin G De Kauwe
- Mathew Lipson
- Matthias Demuzere
- Meiring Beyers
- Michael Roth
- Mikhail Varentsov
- Naika Meili
- Nigel Tapper
- Robert Schoetter
- Sang‐Hyun Lee
- Seung‐bu Park
- Simone Fatichi
- Souhail Boussetta
- Sue Grimmond
- Tiago Machado
- Ting Sun
- Valéry Masson
- Yukihiro Kikegawa
- Yuya Takane
- Zhihua Wang
Organizations
- Arizona State University
- Army Research Office
- Australian Research Council
- Bureau of Meteorology
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
- Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
- Dutch Research Council
- European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
- German Research Foundation
- Imperial College London
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Kongju National University
- Meisei University
- Met Office
- Monash University
- Moscow State University
- National Health and Medical Research Council
- National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
- National Research Foundation of Korea
- National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka
- National University of Singapore
- Natural Environment Research Council
- Nuclear Safety and Security Commission
- Princeton University
- Ruhr University Bochum
- Russian Science Foundation
- Semyung University
- Seoul National University
- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
- UK Research and Innovation
- University College London
- University of Bristol
- University of Melbourne
- University of New South Wales
- University of Oklahoma
- University of Reading
- University of Seoul
- University of Toulouse (1896-1968)
- Wageningen University & Research