[GSoC Project Proposal]: Land Cover Integration for Parametric Hurricane Model (PaHM)

[AtiehAlipour-NOAA]

Project Description

This project aims to enhance the Generalized Asymmetric Holland Model (GAHM) within the Parametric Hurricane Modeling System (PaHM) framework by incorporating land cover effects on wind speeds during tropical cyclones. GAHM is a parametric model that provides realistic representations of wind and pressure fields using track file data from various sources (National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Databases, International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship). While GAHM effectively models wind fields, the current standalone versions don't account for varying land cover characteristics that significantly affect wind speeds over land.
The project will focus on:

• Implementing efficient access and storage of land cover datasets (NLCD, NOAA C-CAP)
• Developing algorithms to calculate roughness values based on upwind land cover characteristics
• Modifying wind fields using boundary layer theory to account for land cover effects
• Integration of these features into the PaHM framework

This enhancement will improve the accuracy of wind field predictions over land, which is crucial for storm surge and coastal flooding forecasts. The implementation will build upon existing successful approaches used in the Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) model.

Software:
Parametric Hurricane Modeling System (PaHM): https://github.com/noaa-ocs-modeling/PaHM

Expected Outcomes

• A new version of GAHM in PaHM that incorporates land cover effects on wind fields, including:
• Efficient handling of land cover datasets
• Implementation of roughness calculations
• Modified wind field calculations accounting for land cover types
• Documentation and validation of the new features

Skills Required

• Fortran (required for PaHM/GAHM development)
• Python for analysis and visualization; Libraries: Xarray, Cartopy, Matplotlib, NetCDF4 for handling and plotting gridded data
• Some experience with numerical modeling.

Additional Background/Issues

No response

Mentor(s)

Rick Luettich ([email protected] ), Mansur Jisan ([email protected] )

Expected Project Size

350 hours

Project Difficulty

Intermediate