Urban weather modeling applications: A Vienna case study

Abstract

Recently, the interest in urban weather modeling methods has been steadily increasing. This is in part due to the insight that thermal building performance simulations are typically undertaken with standardized weather files that provide a rather general perspective on urban weather conditions. This may lead toward errors in conclusions drawn from modeling efforts. In this context, present contribution reports on the potential of different approaches to generate location-dependent urban meteorological data. We compare the meteorological output generated with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, Urban Weather Generator, and morphing approach. These methods were compared based on empirical data (air temperature, humidity, and wind speed) collected from two distinct urban locations in Vienna, Austria, over 5 study periods. Our results suggest significant temporal and spatial discrepancies in resulting modeling output. Results further suggest better predictive performance in the case of high-density urban areas and under warmer and extreme conditions in spring and summer periods, respectively.

Applying urban climate model in prediction mode—evaluation of MUKLIMO_3 model performance for Austrian cities based on the summer period of 2019

“…Several parameterization approaches (Kusaka et al 2001;Martilli et al 2002;Salamanca et al 2010) were developed to better represent cities and evaluated in a number of different case study regions (e.g. Salamanca et al 2011;Zhang et al 2011;Garcia-Diez et al 2016;Ronda et al 2017;Göndöcs et al 2017;Vuckovic et al 2020, Molnár et al 2019. However, mesoscale model simulations on a sub-kilometre spatial scale are computationally expensive and therefore hard to apply for weather forecasting purpose in operational mode.…”

Mapping Local Climate Zones and Their Applications in European Urban Environments: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Development Trends

“…Finally, LCZ mapping by means of WUDAPT L0 may deconstruct cities into distinct urban landscapes, based on a range of physical parameters [102], parameters that generate similar thermal signatures at a neighbourhood scale. To date, LCZ classification has been established by the WUDAPT method for many cities in western Europe [102,[105][106][107][108][109][110], in central Europe [102,109,[111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119], southern Europe [109,[120][121][122] and eastern Europe [123], as well as throughout Europe [124].…”

“…Some studies [119,120,122] have demonstrated that LCZ data can improve model performance by incorporating the LCZ scheme generated from WUDAPT L0 into the weather research forecasting (WRF) model, i.e., they have shown that the building effect parameterization-building energy model (BEP-BEM) is sensitive to landscape heterogeneity.…”

“…Prediction of air temperature, OTC and other climate indices at local scales would constitute significant progress in urban climate research. In this light, a number of studies have compared modelled and simulated data with measured datasets, using numerical model MUKLIMO_3 [5,94,98,111,115] or other numerical models, such as WRF [119,139]. Brousse et al [120] modelled the spatial temperature characteristics of LCZs using the WRF model and McRae et al [152] included LCZs in a WRF simulation of boundary conditions for ENVI-met, using San Jose (California) as an example town.…”

“…However, it was created as a robust system, featuring a reasonable number of built-up and land-cover classes, in order to be applicable at a global level. Nevertheless, certain studies have discussed additional subclasses in urban [25] and non-urban [93,119] zones, on the grounds of obtaining more detailed and clearer spatial thermal signals. Such a subclass approach is probably difficult to implement widely, and Alexander and Mills [134] have concluded that it is rather necessary to standardise the method for detection and delineation of LCZs in urban areas in a uniform way that can be sufficiently applied throughout the world.…”