THESIS | Urban properties tool

This tool creates the urban properties data required as input to the Community Earth System Model's (CESM's) Community Land Model (CLM) component. CLM requires urban properties for four city types in each of 33 regions. The properties include data such as the percentage of area covered by buildings, building height, roof and wall thermal conductivity, and the emissivity and albedo of roofs, walls, and roads.

The tool works by referencing a file containing the thermal properties of individual materials (eg. the thermal conductivity, heat capacity, emissivity, and albedo of air, concrete, and wood), and then referencing files specifying how such materials are combined to construct walls, roofs, and roads, from which the thermal properties of various types of roofs, walls, and roads are computed. Finally, the code references files that describe urban canyon morphology and the types of roofs, walls, and roads used for four city types (only three of which are actively used in CLM) in each of 33 regions.

Released code

Source code (in NCL) can be downloaded here.
A user name and password is required to access this repository, register here.

Citation for Model Code

Feddema, J., Kauffman, B. (2016, July 26) “Urban Properties Tool (Version 1.2)” NCAR THESIS Tools Library. Retrieved from: https://svn-iam-thesis-release.cgd.ucar.edu/urban_properties/. DOI: 10.5065/D6R78CMT.

Documentation

• Download documentation (PDF) for the urban properties tool.
• Download a presentation (PDF) about the urban properties tool.

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