MCA: Urban-resolving Modeling System - Urban Heat Island, Urban Hydrology, Air Pollution, and Aerosol-Cloud Interaction Nexus

该项目将帮助研究团队了解城市化对天气和气候的影响。它将为城市如何影响我们的当地环境以及可持续做法在城市规划中的重要性提供有价值的见解。为此，该项目将开发一个天气和城市模型，研究城市热岛、室外水和空气污染之间的相互作用。这个模型将提供对城市及其过热、植被灌溉和再悬浮污染颗粒如何影响云形成的理解，特别是降雨和风暴。该项目将把重点放在休斯顿市，在能源部和国家科学基金会的领导下，在最近的实地活动中收集的数据有可能改善天气和城市模型。通过观察各种天气情景和因素，研究界可以更全面地了解城市与天气之间的复杂关系。这一新知识还将有助于改进气候适应和缓解战略，并为城市社区和决策者提供更好的支持。该项目的目标是提高对城市环境如何调节气象(包括对流和降水)的物理学的基本理解。它解决了多尺度大气相互作用的问题，将天气尺度和中尺度强迫与休斯顿地区的城市分辨率过程联系起来。使用美国能源部/ASR跟踪气溶胶对流相互作用实验(TRACE)和美国国家科学基金会/海风对流、气溶胶、降水和环境实验(EASH)的新观测产品，以及包括新开发的城市灌溉模块、尖端城市分辨率、云分辨率和气溶胶感知模型的城市模拟系统，将更全面和详细地描述城市化对气象学的影响。为了更全面地了解所涉及的关键因素和过程，本项目将审查不同天气背景下的行为范围。来自沙漠研究所、太平洋西北国家实验室和休斯顿大学的研究科学家将合作开发概述的城市模拟系统，并加强对城市化对暖云-气溶胶相互作用影响的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will help the research team understand the impacts of urbanization on weather and climate. It will provide valuable insights into how cities can influence our local environment and the importance of sustainable practices in urban planning. To do this, the project will develop a weather and urban model that examines the interaction between the urban heat island, outdoor water, and air pollution. This model will provide understanding of how cities and their excess heat, vegetation irrigations and resuspended pollution particles can affect cloud formation, especially rainfall and storms. The project will focus on the city of Houston, where data collected during recent field campaigns, led by the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, have the potential to improve weather and urban models. By looking at various weather scenarios and factors, the research communities can get a more complete picture of the complex relationship between cities and weather. This new knowledge will also help improve climate adaptation and mitigation strategies and provide better support to urban communities and decision-makers.This project targets at improving the fundamental understanding of the physics tied to how the urban environment modulates meteorology, including convection and precipitation. It addresses issues of multiscale atmospheric interactions, associating synoptic scale and mesoscale forcing with urban resolving processes in the Houston area. The use of new observationally based products from the DOE/ASR Tracking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) and NSF/Experiment of Sea Breeze Convection, Aerosols, Precipitation and Environment (ESCAPE), together with an Urban Modeling Systems that includes a newly developed urban irrigation module, cutting-edge urban-resolving, cloud-resolving, and aerosol-aware modeling, will provide a more complete and detailed characterization of the impacts of urbanization on meteorology. To gain a more general physical understanding of the key factors and processes involved this project will examine the range of behaviors under different synoptic settings. Research scientist from the Desert Research Institute, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the University of Houston will collaborate to develop the outlined urban modeling systems and enhance understanding of urbanization's impact on warm cloud-aerosol interactions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.