Multi-scale flow analysis for scale-aware urban-canopy models

TL;DR

This study applies a multi-scale coarse-graining framework to LES of urban environments, revealing how flow heterogeneity varies with resolution and morphology, informing the development of scale-aware urban canopy models for high-resolution weather prediction.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic method to assess flow heterogeneity across scales and evaluates the performance of parameterisations at different resolutions and morphologies.

Findings

Flow heterogeneity scale depends on urban morphology.

Parameterisations perform well only at coarse resolutions.

Heterogeneity increases with finer resolutions, limiting parameterisation accuracy.

Abstract

As Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models approach hectometric resolution, they increasingly enter a regime where urban heterogeneity is only partially resolved and the assumptions underlying conventional urban canopy models (UCMs) become questionable. To address this scale gap, we apply a multi-scale coarse-graining framework (van Reeuwijk and Huang 2025, Boundary-Layer Meteorology) to building-resolving Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) of the University of Bristol campus. Two related morphologies are considered: an original layout with large open-space contrasts and a modified configuration with these regions infilled. By systematically filtering the LES fields, we quantify how flow heterogeneity evolves with resolution and identify a characteristic urban length scale at which resolved and unresolved variability are comparable. This scale is strongly morphology-dependent, with values of about 256 m for the original layout and 64 m for the modified case, showing that neighbourhood-scale organisation can remain important at resolutions relevant to next-generation NWP. We then perform an a priori assessment of distributed drag and turbulent-stress parameterisations. Parameterisations derived from idealised geometries perform reasonably well only at sufficiently coarse resolutions, where horizontal transport is negligible and the flow appears approximately homogeneous. At finer resolutions, their fidelity degrades rapidly because of increasing heterogeneity and filter-to-filter variability in morphology, with stronger limitations in realistic layouts than in idealised cuboid arrays. Overall, the results show that the applicability of urban parameterisations depends critically on the relationship between model resolution and a morphology-dependent heterogeneity scale, providing a systematic route for developing scale-aware UCMs for high-resolution NWP.