Model evaluation of high-resolution urban climate simulations: using the WRF/Noah LSM/SLUCM model (Version 3.7.1) as a case study

Li, Zhiqiang; Zhou, Yulun; Wan, Bingcheng; Chung, Hopun; Huang, Bo; Liu, Biao

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-4571-2019

Articles | Volume 12, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-4571-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-4571-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 11

Model evaluation paper

|

05 Nov 2019

Model evaluation paper |

| 05 Nov 2019

Model evaluation of high-resolution urban climate simulations: using the WRF/Noah LSM/SLUCM model (Version 3.7.1) as a case study

Zhiqiang Li, Yulun Zhou, Bingcheng Wan, Hopun Chung, Bo Huang, and Biao Liu

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Final revised paper (published on 05 Nov 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 29 Oct 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

SC1: 'Executive Editor comment on gmd-2018-220', Astrid Kerkweg, 05 Nov 2018
- AC1: 'WRF ARW modelling system version', Zhiqiang Li, 05 Nov 2018
RC1: 'comments to authors', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Nov 2018
- AC2: 'A Quick Response to the Comments from Reviewer 1', Zhiqiang Li, 28 Nov 2018
- AC4: 'Point-by-point response to Reviewer 1', Zhiqiang Li, 24 Dec 2018
  - AC6: 'Point by Point Response to Reviewer 1 for the completion of the peer-review process', Zhiqiang Li, 22 Jan 2019
RC2: 'Review for ‘Model evaluation of high-resolution urban climate simulations: using WRF ARW/LSM/SLUCM model as a case study’ by Zhiqiang Li et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Nov 2018
- AC3: 'A Quick Response to Reviewer 2', Zhiqiang Li, 28 Nov 2018
- AC5: 'Point-by-point response to Reviewer 2', Zhiqiang Li, 24 Dec 2018
  - AC7: 'Point by Point Response to Reviewer 2 for the completion of the peer-review process', Zhiqiang Li, 22 Jan 2019
AC8: 'New Revision - Manuscript', Zhiqiang Li, 14 May 2019
AC9: 'New Revision - Supplementary Material', Zhiqiang Li, 14 May 2019
AC10: 'New Revision - Point to Point Response', Zhiqiang Li, 14 May 2019
AC11: 'New Revision', Zhiqiang Li, 25 Jul 2019
AC12: 'New Revision', Zhiqiang Li, 25 Jul 2019
AC13: 'New Revision', Zhiqiang Li, 25 Jul 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Zhiqiang Li on behalf of the Authors (22 Jan 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (23 Jan 2019) by Jason Williams

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (01 Feb 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (25 Feb 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The overall intention of this submission is a good one. In general I agree that more attention should be paid to model evaluation in urban climate modelling work. However, this submission is relatively formulaic and it misses a number of key nuances that render the overall model assessment somewhat unconvincing and moreover unlikely to be applied by other researchers. I appreciate the authors’ intent, and believe more rigorous model evaluation is critically needed in the field. However, this submission does not currently approach GMD standards in my view.

English grammar requires improvement throughout.

There are too many tables. In general the presentation/communication requires improvement.

Figure captions are in general insufficiently detailed. For example, it is not clearly indicated whether central tendencies and variation in several figures are spatial or temporal.

P3L27-33: There is no mention of how spatial patterns are evaluated here. In general, it is not fully clear how spatial patterns produced by urban climate modelling at the city-regional scale is evaluated, which is a prime intention of these models.

P4L9: 2m air temperature is diagnosed in WRF-SLUCM, and I believe that surface temperature is as well. 10-m wind is also diagnosed.

Table 3: TSK should not be compared to a MODIS land surface temperature product. TSK includes the emission of all building walls, whereas a satellite does not view longwave emission from any walls (nadir view), or only from walls of select orientations (off-nadir view). Many authors make this mistake; if this is to be a rigorous model evaluation paper that sets an example, it should not be made here. Instead, you must extract the surface temperatures of roads, roofs and rural area and weight them yourself for each grid square. This is not necessarily trivial and requires adding an “h” to the appropriate variables in the WRF Registry as well as outputting the rural surface temperature (which may require adding a new variable and re-running the simulations).

Figure 3: These results will depend entirely on how many measurement stations are available and included, will they not?

P12L2-5: I disagree. I think they are both useful. In particular, with the use of the Perkins Skill Score, a climatological approach appears to be taken here. What is also important for urban climate modelling is that the temporal evolution of each variable is predicted accurately, particularly at diurnal time scales. For example, a measure of covariance between measurements and observation that includes many temporal data points within each cycle of forcing is important (e.g., hourly measurement-model comparison of air temperature would capture the covariance between measured and modelled diurnal variation).

Ultimately, I think model evaluation will always have a subjective element. How is the authors’ method designed to be applicable to all regions, conditions, simulation durations and resolutions, etc?

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (04 Mar 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (21 Mar 2019)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (02 Apr 2019) by Jason Williams

AR by Zhiqiang Li on behalf of the Authors (14 May 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (16 May 2019) by Jason Williams

RR by Anonymous Referee #5 (03 Jun 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (12 Jun 2019)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (13 Jun 2019) by Jason Williams

AR by Zhiqiang Li on behalf of the Authors (25 Jul 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (14 Aug 2019) by Jason Williams

AR by Zhiqiang Li on behalf of the Authors (24 Aug 2019) Manuscript

Short summary

This article proposes a methodological framework for the model evaluation of high-resolution urban climate simulations and demonstrates its effectiveness with a case study in a fast-urbanizing area (Shenzhen and Hong Kong SAR, China). It is intended to (again) remind urban climate modellers of the necessity of conducting systematic model evaluations in urban-scale climatology modelling and reduce ambiguous or arbitrary modelling practices.