Publications

Chalakkal, JB; Mohan, M (2023). Impact of AWiFS derived land use/land cover over the intensely urbanised domain of National Capital Region (NCR) - Delhi in simulating monsoon weather. URBAN CLIMATE, 52, 101686.

Abstract
Land-Use/Land-Cover (LULC) plays a crucial role in meteorological models because they determine the crustal properties that interfere with the exchange of energy, momentum, and moisture between the land surface and the atmosphere. The current study integrates a legitimate ground truth LULC based on the Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model framework for simulating short-term monsoon weather over the National Capital Region (NCR Delhi), the biggest urban settlement in the Monsoon Zone. AWiFS provides LULC data at 56 m spatial resolution. The newly implemented AWiFS LULC precisely distinguishes the WRF model default Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) classification and urban representation. Both simulations most well capture the urban meteorological influence over the urban core. However, the AWiFS more accurately depicts NCR urban Land Use (LU), highlighted in the spatial and Probability Density Function (PDF) distributions of various meteorological variables, and captures numerous small-scale suburban settlements outside the central core zone. The impact of the omission of the Noida suburban in MODIS LU is also notable in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). Convective parameters and precipitation correlate strongly, and the AWiFS simulation considerably enhanced Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE), Convective Inhibition (CIN) and other associated variables. Further, it indicates that a higher magnitude (>200 J kg(-1) in difference) of CAPE is simulated over Faridabad, likely an urban-induced downwind effect due to the accurate representation of the Noida suburban in AWiFS. The study highlights the importance of updated LULC in enhancing model realisation, and AWiFS-based simulation showed improved performance.

DOI:
10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101686

ISSN: