SanDyPALM v1.0: static and dynamic drivers for the PALM model to facilitate urban microclimate simulations

Vogel, Julian; Stadler, Sebastian; Chockalingam, Ganesh; Afshari, Afshin; Henning, Johanna; Winkler, Matthias

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-6063-2025

Articles | Volume 18, issue 18

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-6063-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-6063-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 18

Development and technical paper

|

17 Sep 2025

Development and technical paper |

| 17 Sep 2025

SanDyPALM v1.0: static and dynamic drivers for the PALM model to facilitate urban microclimate simulations

Julian Vogel, Sebastian Stadler, Ganesh Chockalingam, Afshin Afshari, Johanna Henning, and Matthias Winkler

Data sets

ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center ASTER Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003

Global map of Local Climate Zones M. Demuzere et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8419340

DWD Open Data-Server Climate Data Center (CDC) Deutscher Wetterdienst https://opendata.dwd.de/climate_environment/CDC/observations_germany/

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1979 to present, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS) H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1979 to present, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS) H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Urban Climate Observatory Berlin D. Scherer et al. https://uco.berlin/en/dataportal

Model code and software

SanDyPALM code (Zenodo) Julian Vogel et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14772519

SanDyPALM code repository (Gitlab) Julian Vogel and Sebastian Stadler https://gitlab.cc-asp.fraunhofer.de/upm/sandy-palm

PALM-GeM: Geospatial Data Merging and Preprocessing into PALM M. Bureš and J. Resler 0.5281/zenodo.11067859

palmpy code repository S. Fluck https://github.com/stefanfluck/palmpy

PALM Input Data Standard (PIDS) PALM model system developers https://palm.muk.uni-hannover.de/trac/wiki/doc/app/iofiles/pids

OSM2PALM code repository S. Stadler https://gitlab.cc-asp.fraunhofer.de/palm_gui/osm2palm

PALM-4U GUI code Repository S. Stadler et al. https://gitlab.cc-asp.fraunhofer.de/palm_gui/palm4u_gui

PALMClassify code repository S. Stadler et al. https://gitlab.cc-asp.fraunhofer.de/palm_gui/palmclassify

Short summary

This study presents a toolkit to simplify input data creation for an urban microclimate model. It introduces novel methods to automate the use of open data sources. Our analysis of four test cases created from different geographic data sources shows variations in temperature, humidity, and wind speed, influenced by data quality. Our validation indicates that the automated methods can yield results comparable to expert-driven approaches, facilitating user-friendly urban climate modeling.