Initial Results from Phase 2 of the International Urban Energy Balance Model Comparison
Authors
C. S. B. Grimmond, Kings College London
M. Blackett, King's College London
M. Best, Met Office, Exeter, UK
J.-J. Baik, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
S. Belcher, University of Reading, Reading, UK
J. Beringer, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
S. I. Bohnenstengel, University of Reading, Reading, UK
I. Calmet, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Nantes, France
F. Chen, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
A. Coutts, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
A. Dandou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
K. Fortuniak, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
M. L. Gouvea, King's College London
R. Hamdi, Royal Meteorological Institute, Brussels, Belgium
M. Hendry, Met Office, Exeter, UK
M. Kanda, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
T. Kawai, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki, Japan
Y. Kawamoto, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
H. Kondo, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciecne and Technology, Ibaraki, Japan
E. S. Krayenhoff, University of British Columbia
S. H. Lee, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
T. Loridan, King's College London
A. Martilli, CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
V. Masson, Météo France
S. Miao, China Meteorological Administration
K. Oleson, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
R. Ooka, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
G. Pigeon, Météo France
A. Porson, Met Office, Exeter, UK
Y. H. Ryu, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
F. Salamanca, CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
G. J. Steeneveld, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
M. Tombrou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
James A. Voogt, The University of Western Ontario
D. T. Young, King's College London
N. Zhang, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Journal
International Journal of Climatology
URL with Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.2227
Abstract
Urban land surface schemes have been developed to model the distinct features of the urban surface and the associated energy exchange processes. These models have been developed for a range of purposes and make different assumptions related to the inclusion and representation of the relevant processes. Here, the first results of Phase 2 from an international comparison project to evaluate 32 urban land surface schemes are presented. This is the first large-scale systematic evaluation of these models. In four stages, participants were given increasingly detailed information about an urban site for which urban fluxes were directly observed. At each stage, each group returned their models' calculated surface energy balance fluxes. Wide variations are evident in the performance of the models for individual fluxes. No individual model performs best for all fluxes. Providing additional information about the surface generally results in better performance. However, there is clear evidence that poor choice of parameter values can cause a large drop in performance for models that otherwise perform well. As many models do not perform well across all fluxes, there is need for caution in their application, and users should be aware of the implications for applications and decision making.
