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Will WRF developers update the available static landuse files?

AQ_Edie

New member
Hello,

I recently attended the WRF/MPAS users' workshop, and more than a few discussions about landuse came up. I'm curious if there is any plan to update the available static geographic datasets that are used in geogrid. I haven't been able to find much documentation about how old these datasets are, but based on this post (https://forum.mmm.ucar.edu/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=168) the MODIS dataset is from 2001 or 2004? My region (Salt Lake City, UT) has changed dramatically just in the last 10 years. Not only the urban land fraction, but also the extent of the Great Salt Lake.

During the workshop, it was mentioned that updating the landuse options would be tedious and time consuming to ensure the data was properly qc'd, but I can't help but wonder if at least some of the errors seen in WRF stem from the mismatch of current-day landuse and the data available.

It looks like many users on this forum have edited their local landuse files. Is there a repository for more updated options that are publicly available? We will certainly try to add more landuse adjustments to our region specifically, but defaulting to a 20-year old dataset for the outer domains is still unappealing. Any thoughts or data sharing for a WESTUS domain would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!
 
Hi,
I apologize for the delayed response. Many of us have been out of the office for extended periods of time recently. At this time, we do not have any plans to make any updates. As you mentioned, the process would be quite tedious and, unfortunately, we are limited on resources at the moment. We typically receive these updates from outside contributors and would welcome any contributions in this area.
 
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