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Title: Application of the NCAR FastEddy® Microscale Model to a Lake Breeze Front
This study investigates how urban environments influence boundary layer processes during the passage of a Great Salt Lake breeze using a multi-scale modeling system, NCAR’s WRF-Coupled GPU-accelerated FastEddy® (FE) model. Motivated by the need for sub-10 m scale decision support tools for uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), the FE model was used to simulate turbulent flows around urban structures at 5 m horizontal resolution with a 9 km × 9 km domain centered on the Salt Lake City International Airport. FE was one-way nested within a 1 km resolution Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) domain spanning 400 × 400 km. Focused on the late morning lake breeze on 3 June 2022, an FE simulation was compared with WRF outputs and validated using surface and radar observations. The FE simulation revealed low sensible heat flux and cool near-surface temperatures, attributed to a relatively low specification of thermal roughness suitable for previously tested FE applications. Lake breeze characteristics were minimally affected, as FE effectively resolved interactions between the lake breeze and urban-induced turbulent eddies, providing insights into fine-scale boundary layer processes. FE’s GPU acceleration ensured efficient simulations, underscoring its potential for aiding decision support in UAS operations in complex urban environments.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2330582
PAR ID:
10641473
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Publisher / Repository:
MDPI Open Access Journal
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Application of the NCAR FastEddy® microscale model to a Lake Breeze Front
Volume:
15
Issue:
7
ISSN:
2073-4433
Page Range / eLocation ID:
809
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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