Radović et al. (2026) Evaluating the radiative fidelity of WRF-driven PALM (v25.04) in high-resolution using RTM: impact of diverse urban morphology and vegetation on short-wave radiation

Identification

• Journal: Geoscientific model development
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-07-08
• Authors: Jelena Radović, Michal Belda, Martin Bureš, Kryštof Eben, Jan Geletič, Jakub Jura, Pavel Krč, Hynek Řezníček, Jaroslav Resler
• DOI: 10.5194/gmd-19-6001-2026

Research Groups

• Department of Atmospheric Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University Prague
• Department of Complex Systems, Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences
• Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague

Short Summary

This study evaluates the radiative fidelity of the PALM model (v25.04) driven by WRF-derived radiative forcing, using high-resolution measurements from a multi-episode ensemble spanning clear-sky to overcast conditions.

Objective

• Evaluate the ability of PALM to resolve short-wave radiation and its interaction with heterogeneous urban landscapes
• Investigate the impact of diverse urban morphology and vegetation on short-wave radiation

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: High-resolution simulations (1 m grid resolution) covering a 800 m x 500 m domain in Dejvice, Prague
• Temporal Scale: Multi-episode ensemble spanning from clear-sky to overcast conditions during the summers of 2017 and 2018

Methodology and Data

• Models used: PALM model system (v25.04) with RTM version 4.1
• Data sources: WRF-derived radiative forcing, high-resolution measurements from a multi-episode ensemble

Main Results

• PALM resolves urban-and vegetation-induced short-wave radiative exchange with high fidelity regardless of the urban setting
• The model captures the 3D micro-scale heterogeneity of the urban canopy and provides a detailed representation of radiative interactions and their dynamic timing
• Biases in meso-scale cloud fields and radiation inputs cannot be fully compensated for by the micro-scale model

Contributions

• This study provides a benchmark for the validation of high-resolution urban radiative transfer exchanges
• The results highlight the importance of rigorous verification of cloud representation and radiative fields in the meso-scale driving data for accurate street-scale micrometeorological simulations

Funding

• Not specified

Citation

@article{Radović2026Evaluating,
  author = {Radović, Jelena and Belda, Michal and Bureš, Martin and Eben, Kryštof and Geletič, Jan and Jura, Jakub and Krč, Pavel and Řezníček, Hynek and Resler, Jaroslav},
  title = {Evaluating the radiative fidelity of WRF-driven PALM (v25.04) in high-resolution using RTM: impact of diverse urban morphology and vegetation on short-wave radiation},
  journal = {Geoscientific model development},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.5194/gmd-19-6001-2026},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6001-2026}
}