Teddy R. Holt Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, CA
Steve Chin, Marty Leach, and Gayle Sugiyama Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA
The Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) developed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is a complete 3-D mesoscale prediction system consisting of atmospheric and ocean data assimilation (including data quality control), analysis, initialization, and a nonhydrostatic atmospheric forecast model coupled to a hydrostatic ocean model. The atmospheric system has been used for operational mesoscale forecasting since 1996, providing products to the meteorological community from both a supercomputer central site (Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center) as well as regional sites using workstations (Naval centers, Universities, Government Agencies, etc.).
Because the urban infrastructure can have a tremendous impact on surface and atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic structure, an urban canopy parameterization developed by Chin et al. (2001) that extends the work of Brown and Williams (1998) and Yamada (1982) has been recently implemented into COAMPS. This parameterization accounts for effects due to drag, turbulent production, radiation balance, and anthropogenic and roof-top heating, and makes use of an additional equation for the roof-top surface energy balance.
Land-surface characterizations, including urban effects, are crudely parameterized in the current operational COAMPS by varying surface parameters for roughness, albedo, and ground wetness derived from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation System (EROS) Data Center 1-km resolution global land cover characteristics database, in conjunction with 10-day composites of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data for four seasons of 1995-1996 and the work of Dorman and Sellers (1989), Defries and Townshend (1994), and Los et al. (1994).
High-resolution (~ 1 km horizontal grid spacing) real-data COAMPS simulations with this new parameterization will be compared to COAMPS simulations with the current land-surface parameterization, as well as available observations from field experiments to assess the first order impact on surface temperature and wind profiles. Comparison of surface energy budgets for the two simulations will also be evaluated.
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