DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15217359
title: U-Surf-WRF: Modifications to U-Surf and the WRF model for compatibility

description: U-Surf was created for the CLM paradigm of urban canopies, which includes some forms of urban vegetation as part of the canyon floor as "impervious road". However, WRF and its urban canopy schemes simulate all urban vegetation and bare soil separately. This dataset removes urban vegetation from the street. Besides the included variables in this dataset, all other variables from U-Surf may be used directly and without modification. Additional details on how this dataset was generated can be found in the paper, "Impact of Spatially Continuous Urban Surface Properties on Heatwave Simulations: A Multi-City Analysis".

h2w_wrf.tif: Height-to-width ratio. Due to how this variable is transformed in this dataset to preserve its physical representation as outlined in Cheng et al. (2025), some areas with mostly unpaved roads will have large values of this quantity that, in some edge cases, may be large enough to pose problems when running simulations. However, the impervious fraction in those areas is normally very low, so capping this value should not yield a substantial difference. Therefore, any values of this quantity above 15 have been set to 15.

frcurb_wrf.tif: Impervious fraction.

lp_wrf.tif: Plan area fraction, considering only the impervious portion. This variable is meant to be aggregated by LCZ and input into URBPARM_LCZ.TBL.

lp_wrf_urbparam.tif: Plan area fraction, considering all land area. This variable is meant to be ingested into the URB_PARAM variable in geo_em files -- WRF expects a different definition of plan area fraction according to whether it is assigned through geo_em files or the URBPARM_LCZ.TBL file.

WRF_Chicago.tar: A version of WRF that, among other features, can ingest urban albedo for every grid point. Indices URB_PARAM(i,35,j) for roof albedo, URB_PARAM(i,36,j) for road, and URB_PARAM(i,37,j) for wall albedo. The URBPARM_LCZ.TBL file must include the following variables, even if none of the following additional features are used:

#

# THERM_COMF: switch to estimate thermal comfort parameters: 0 no, 1 SET, 2 UTCI

#

 

THERM_COMF: 2

 

#

#

# MET_COMF:  metabolic rate (for thermal comfort index, SET)

#      (sf_urban_physics=3)

#

#

 

MET_COMF: 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2, 1.2

 

#

#

# CLO_COMF:  clothing  (for thermal comfort index, SET)

#      (sf_urban_physics=3)

#

 

CLO_COMF: 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4

 

#

#

# WME_COMF:  work  (for thermal comfort index, SET)

#      (sf_urban_physics=3)

#

 

WME_COMF: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

 

#



#

# WEIGHT_COMF:  body weight in Kg  (for thermal comfort index, SET)

#      (sf_urban_physics=3)

#

 

WEIGHT_COMF: 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80

 

#

# HEIGHT_COMF:  body height in m  (for thermal comfort index, SET)

#      (sf_urban_physics=3)

#

 

HEIGHT_COMF: 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80, 1.80


# Fraction of the streets covered by trees

# (sf_urban_physics=3)

 

FRC_TREE: 0.7, 0.7, 0.7, 0.7,0.7,0.7,0.7,0.7,0.7,0.7,0.7

 

#

#

ABSV_TREE: 0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,

LAI_TREE:3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3.,3

LEV_TREE:2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2

 



# Fraction of the streets covered by gardens/grass

# (sf_urban_physics=3)

 

GR_FRAC_GROUND: 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,0.

 

#

# GR_FLAG: 1 to switch on green roof model (0-1)

#      (sf_urban_physics=3)

#

 

GR_FLAG:1

 

 


References:

Cheng, Y., Zhao, L., Chakraborty, T. C., Oleson, K., Demuzere, M., Liu, X., ... & Li, X. C. (2025). U-Surf: a global 1 km spatially continuous urban surface property dataset for kilometer-scale urban-resolving Earth system modeling. Earth System Science Data, 17(5), 2147-2174.