Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2064
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2064
20 May 2025
 | 20 May 2025

Hectometric-scale modelling of the urban mixed layer evaluated with a dense LiDAR-ceilometer network

Russell H. Glazer, Sue Grimmond, Lewis Blunn, Daniel Fenner, Humphrey Lean, Andreas Christen, Will Morrison, and Dana Looschelders

Abstract. With development in recent years of hectometric (O(100 m); hm) scale numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, there is a need for their evaluation with high spatio-temporal scale observations. Here we assess UK Met Office Unified Model (UM) simulations with grid-spacing down to 100 m using a dense network of observations obtained during the urbisphere-Berlin campaign. A network of 25 automatic lidars-ceilometers (ALCs) provide aerosol attenuated backscatter observations from which mixed-layer height (MLH) is determined. UM simulated aerosol on two days (18 April and 4 August 2022) is used to determine model MLH with a novel algorithm (MMLH). MMLH is consistently able to reproduce the vertical extent of the mixed layer during late afternoon despite the two case-study days having different maxima. MMLH performance is better in the 100 m model domain compared to a 300 m configuration, which may be explained by the higher vertical resolution in the 100 m configuration. During the August case in which an extreme heat event occurred, a delayed MLH growth is seen in the morning and afternoon over the city compared to the rural surroundings in both the model and ALCs. Both days show a distinct influence of the city through the mixed layer, including a plume extending downwind of the city that is detectable in both the observations and model. The modelled urban plume has a deeper mixed layer compared to the rural surroundings (4 August: ~500 m; 18 April: ~200 m) for up to 15 km downwind of the city.

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Russell H. Glazer, Sue Grimmond, Lewis Blunn, Daniel Fenner, Humphrey Lean, Andreas Christen, Will Morrison, and Dana Looschelders

Status: final response (author comments only)

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2064', Anonymous Referee #1, 01 Jul 2025
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2064', Anonymous Referee #2, 04 Aug 2025
  • EC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2064', Bianca Adler, 05 Aug 2025
  • AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2064 - referee #1', Russell Glazer, 01 Sep 2025
  • AC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2064 - referee #2', Russell Glazer, 01 Sep 2025
  • AC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2064', Russell Glazer, 01 Sep 2025
Russell H. Glazer, Sue Grimmond, Lewis Blunn, Daniel Fenner, Humphrey Lean, Andreas Christen, Will Morrison, and Dana Looschelders
Russell H. Glazer, Sue Grimmond, Lewis Blunn, Daniel Fenner, Humphrey Lean, Andreas Christen, Will Morrison, and Dana Looschelders

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Short summary
In this study we use very high resolution numerical weather prediction model simulations of the Berlin, Germany region along with assessment of field campaign observations to understand better the impact of urban areas on the near-surface boundary layer. We find that there a clear affect of urban areas up to 15 kilometers downwind of the city centre in both the field campaign observations and the high resolution model.
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