SLUCM+BEM: A simple parameterisation for dynamic anthropogenic heat and electricity consumption in WRF-Urban

Abstract

We propose a simple dynamic anthropogenic heat (QF) parameterisation for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)-single-layer urban canopy model (SLUCM). The SLUCM is a remarkable physically based urban canopy model that is widely used worldwide. However, a limitation of SLUCM is that it considers a statistically based diurnal pattern of QF. Consequently, QF is not affected by outdoor temperature changes and the diurnal pattern of QF is constant throughout the simulation period. To address these limitations, based on the concept of a building energy model (BEM), which has been officially introduced in WRF, we propose a parameterisation to dynamically and simply simulate QF from buildings (QFB) through physically based calculation of the indoor heat load and input parameters for BEM and SLUCM. This method allows model users to simulate dynamic QF and electricity consumption (EC) according to factors such as outdoor temperature changes, building insulation, and heating and air conditioning (HAC) performance simply by setting the AHOPTION option in URBPRAM.TBL to 2. SLUCM+BEM was shown to simulate temporal variations of QFB and EC for HAC (ECHAC) and broadly reproduce the ECHAC estimates of more sophisticated BEM and ECHAC observations in the world’s largest metropolis, Tokyo. Our results demonstrate that SLUCM-BEM can be applied to urban climates worldwide.