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Overview of an Urban Canopy Parameterization in COAMPS

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/928190· OSTI ID:928190

The Coupled Atmosphere/Ocean Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) model (Hodur, 1997) was developed at the Naval Research Laboratory. COAMPS has been used at resolutions as small as 2 km to study the role of complex topography in generating mesoscale circulation (Doyle, 1997). The model has been adapted for use in the Atmospheric Science Division at LLNL for both research and operational use. The model is a fully, non-hydrostatic model with several options for turbulence parameterization, cloud processes and radiative transfer. We have recently modified the COAMPS code to include building and other urban surfaces effects in the mesoscale model by incorporating an urban canopy parameterization (UCP) (Chin et al., 2005). This UCP is a modification of the original parameterization of (Brown and Williams, 1998), based on Yamada's (1982) forest canopy parameterization and includes modification of the TKE and mean momentum equations, modification of radiative transfer, and an anthropogenic heat source. COAMPS is parallelized for both shared memory (OpenMP) and distributed memory (MPI) architecture.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
928190
Report Number(s):
UCRL-TR-219096
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English