Testing Brutsaert's temperature roughness parameterization for representing urban surfaces in atmospheric models

Abstract

It is verified whether Brutsaert's temperature roughness parameterization, developed for surfaces composed of solid obstacles arrays, is suitable for representing urban surfaces in high-resolution atmospheric models. In order to do so, the temperature roughness parameterization is incorporated into a land surface scheme coupled to a mesoscale meteorological model, and the latter is subsequently used to perform a simulation over the larger area of Paris on a cloud-free day. As a main result, it is found that simulated land surface temperature compares favourably to observed values obtained from thermal infrared satellite imagery. This confirms the validity of Brutsaert's thermal roughness parameterization, thus warranting its use in regional-scale prognostic atmospheric models employed for, e.g., weather forecasting or air pollution studies. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.