2.2
SIMULATING WIND FIELDS FOR DIFFERENT RESOLUTIONS OF TERRAIN AND MORPHOLOGICAL LAND FEATURES

Ronald M. Cionco, US Army Research Lab, Adelphi, MD

With the availabitily of digitized high resolution morphology data bases and digitized terrain elevation data, the presence and effects of land features upon flow fields can be identified and established in support of other studies and field applications. A high resolution wind model is run to compute the variation of surface layer flow as it interacts with the underlying variable terrain - and then repeated with the addition of discrete morphological features (specifically vegetation and buildings). The domain selected for this simulation study is a 5 km x 5 km area centered on the Gunpowder Neck Peninsula in central Maryland. Meteorological observations from the nearby Meteorological Team are used to initialize the wind model. Morphological data sets are constructed initially for a 100 m grid and then refined to 50 m resolution for the interior of the domain. The morphology data base was constructed previously for another study and resides in our inventory. The terrain effects upon the wind field are light to moderate. The additive effects of the land features further modify and deform the flow fields. Examples of the flow fields are presented to depict the interaction of air flow with terrain and morphology of different resolutions.

The Second Symposium on Urban Environment