How is AC waste heat released in WRF-Urban BEM?

[luht]

Dear WRF community,
I am using WRF v4.5.2 with sf_urban_physics = 3 (BEM) to investigate how air-conditioning affects the urban thermal environment. So far I have not been able to find a clear description about the AC waste heat.
Could anyone tell me:

1. In the current code, is this heat entirely released as sensible heat into air, or is it automatically split into sensible and latent components?
2. If a split is applied, where (namelist, table, or source file) can I see or modify the ratio?
3. If no split is implemented in the official release, would the only solution be to edit module_bem.F and recompile?

Thank you very much for your help.

 

[luht]

Hi,
can anyone help clarify how AC waste heat is released in BEM?
Thanks!

 

[Ming Chen]

Hi,

My understanding is that AC waste heat is released as sensible heat to the atmosphere. There is no split between sensible and latent heat fluxes.

I am not sure how to split AC waste heat. Hope someone in the community can provide helpful information.

 

[luht]

Hi,

My understanding is that AC waste heat is released as sensible heat to the atmosphere. There is no split between sensible and latent heat fluxes.

I am not sure how to split AC waste heat. Hope someone in the community can provide helpful information.

Hi Ming,

Thanks for clarifying that. It is very helpful.

I have a follow-up question: Is there any existing variable in wrfout that captures the magnitude of the AC waste heat? Or would I need to rely on sensitivity tests to isolate this portion of the heat flux?

I originally asked about the latent heat component because I read the paper by Xu et al. (2018) (Citation: https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD028168), where they discussed the impact of AC waste heat released as latent heat. I was curious if the official WRF release has adopted a similar approach or if that was a custom modification.

Any advice would be appreciated.