The Water Balance Representation in Urban‐PLUMBER Land Surface Models
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- Hydrology and Environmental Hydraulics Wageningen University Wageningen The Netherlands, Meteorology and Air Quality Wageningen University Wageningen The Netherlands
- Bureau of Meteorology Canberra ACT Australia
- Hydrology and Environmental Hydraulics Wageningen University Wageningen The Netherlands
- Department of Meteorology University of Reading Reading UK
- School of Earth and Environmental Sciences Seoul National University Seoul South Korea
- Met Office Exeter UK
- Department of Geography Urban Climatology Group Ruhr‐University Bochum Bochum Germany, B‐Kode Ghent Belgium
- Department of Meteorology and Climatology Faculty of Geographical Sciences University of Łódź Łódź Poland
- School of Meteorology University of Oklahoma Norman OK USA
- School of Biological Sciences University of Bristol Bristol UK
- Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction University College London London UK, Department of Hydraulic Engineering Tsinghua University Beijing China
- European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reading UK
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering National University of Singapore Singapore Singapore, Future Cities Laboratory Global Singapore‐ETH Centre Singapore Singapore
- U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) Boulder CO USA
- School of Environmental Engineering University of Seoul Seoul South Korea
- Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction University College London London UK
- Meteorology and Air Quality Wageningen University Wageningen The Netherlands, European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Bonn Germany
- Faculty of Geography/Research Computing Center Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow Russia
- School of Meteorology University of Oklahoma Norman OK USA, Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability University of Oklahoma Norman OK USA
- School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment Arizona State University Tempe AZ USA
- Meteorology and Air Quality Wageningen University Wageningen The Netherlands
Abstract Urban Land Surface Models (ULSMs) simulate energy and water exchanges between the urban surface and atmosphere. However, earlier systematic ULSM comparison projects assessed the energy balance but ignored the water balance, which is coupled to the energy balance. Here, we analyze the water balance representation in 19 ULSMs participating in the Urban‐PLUMBER project using results for 20 sites spread across a range of climates and urban form characteristics. As observations for most water fluxes are unavailable, we examine the water balance closure, flux timing, and magnitude with a score derived from seven indicators expecting better scoring models to capture the latent heat flux more accurately. We find that the water budget is only closed in 57% of the model‐site combinations assuming closure when annual total incoming fluxes (precipitation and irrigation) fluxes are within 3% of the outgoing (all other) fluxes. Results show the timing is better captured than magnitude. No ULSM has passed all water balance indicators for any site. Models passing more indicators do not capture the latent heat flux more accurately refuting our hypothesis. While output reporting inconsistencies may have negatively affected model performance, our results indicate models could be improved by explicitly verifying water balance closure and revising runoff parameterizations. By expanding ULSM evaluation to the water balance and related to latent heat flux performance, we demonstrate the benefits of evaluating processes with direct feedback mechanisms to the processes of interest.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 2475444
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 16; ISSN 1942-2466
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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