Modeling large-scale heatwave by incorporating enhanced urban representation

We simulated the 2017 heatwave over Europe considering four scenarios, using WRF coupled with two LSMs (i.e., Noah and Noah-MP) with default land use/land cover (LULC) and with LCZs from the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT).

The results showed that implementing the LCZs significantly improves the WRF simulations of the daily temperature regardless of the LSMs. Implementing the LCZs altered the surface energy balance partitioning in the simulations (i.e., the sensible heat flux was reduced and latent heat flux was increased) primarily due to a higher vegetation feedback in the LCZs. The changes in the surface flux translated into an increase in the simulated 2-m relative humidity and 10-m wind speed as well as changed air temperature within cities section and generated a temperature gradient that affected the temperatures beyond the urban regions.