SLUCM+BEM (v1.0): a simple parameterisation for dynamic anthropogenic heat and electricity consumption in WRF-Urban (v4.3.2)

Abstract. We propose a simple dynamic anthropogenic heat (QF) parameterisation for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) single-layer urban canopy model (SLUCM). The SLUCM is a remarkable physically based urban canopy model that is widely used. However, a limitation of SLUCM is that it considers a statistically based diurnal pattern of QF. Consequently, QF is not affected by outdoor temperature changes, and the diurnal pattern of QF is constant throughout the simulation period. To address these limitations, based on the concept of a building-energy model (BEM), which has been officially introduced in WRF, we propose a parameterisation to dynamically and simply simulate QF from buildings (QFB) through a physically based calculation of the indoor heat load and input parameters for BEM and SLUCM. This method allows users to simulate the dynamic QF and the electricity consumption (EC) as the outdoor temperature, building insulation, and heating and air conditioning (HAC) performance change. This is achieved via the simple selection of certain QF options among the urban parameters of WRF. The new parameterisation, SLUCM+BEM, was shown to simulate temporal variations in QFB and EC for HAC (ECHAC) and broadly reproduce the ECHAC estimates of more sophisticated BEM and ECHAC observations in the world's largest metropolis, Tokyo.