Evaluation of Urban Weather Forecast Using WRF-UCM (Urban Canopy Model) Over Seoul

WRF-UCM (Urban Canopy Model)을 이용한 서울 지역의 도시기상 예보 평가

The Urban Canopy Model (UCM) implemented in WRF model is applied to improve urban meteorological forecast for fine-scale (about 1-km horizontal grid spacing) simulations over the city of Seoul. The results of the surface air temperature and wind speed predicted by WRF-UCM model is compared with those of the standard WRF model. The 2-m air temperature and wind speed of the standard WRF are found to be lower than observation, while the nocturnal urban canopy temperature from the WRF-UCM is superior to the surface air temperature from the standard WRF. Although urban canopy temperature (TC) is found to be lower at industrial sites, TC in high-intensity residential areas compares better with surface observation than 2-m temperature. 10-m wind speed is overestimated in urban area, while urban canopy wind (UC) is weaker than observation by the drag effect of the building. The coupled WRF-UCM represents the increase of urban heat from urban effects such as anthropogenic heat and buildings, etc. The study indicates that the WRF-UCM contributes for the improvement of urban weather forecast such nocturnal heat island, especially when an accurate urban information dataset is provided.