The use of an urban canopy parameterization for MM5 : Application to the Phoenix airshed

An Urban Canopy Parameterization (UCP) has been implemented into MM5 mesoscale meteorological model, which was used in conjunction with fine-scale (1km horizontal grid) resolution simulations for the metro-Phoenix urban area. Two types of simulations were conducted. The basic UCP-MM5 version followed those of Otte et al. (2004) and in the improved version the parameterizations were adjusted following the suggestions of Martilli et al. (2002). The results captured such important urban effects such as the urban heat island and low level jets in the urban core. The improved version of UCP-MM5 was prepared by changing parameters of the basic UCP-MM5, in particular, those of the those of the thermodunamic equations (vis-à-vis a single parameter change in the momentum equation). As such, a significant improvement of the surface temperature could be seen in the improved UCP-MM5 simulations.