FY 2019 Report of the Atmosphere to Electrons Mesoscale-to-Microscale Coupling Project: PNNL-29603

The overall goal of the Mesoscale-to-Microscale Coupling (MMC) project is to improve coupling between mesoscale and microscale simulations via improved guidance and new strategies for setting up simulations and the development of new tools that can be used across the community. Including the mesoscale forcing is critical to modeling the full energy transfer across scales in the atmosphere. The project-specific objectives include: apply rigorous verification and validation (V&V) techniques to the new modeling tools that are developed as part of the project to ensure the accuracy of our codes and results and develop estimates of the relative uncertainty; improve computational performance of the coupled MMC models through the development of methods that can be used to reduce turbulence spin-up time and hence the size of computational domains; improve representation of the surface layer in microscale models to enhance simulations of hub-height wind speed; develop guidance for the community describing the best ways to couple mesoscale and microscale models, including specific spatial scales at which the handoff to the microscale model should occur; prepare documentation and a suite of software tools that can be used across the community; and transition MMC research to the offshore environment.