Units of the `ht_roof` variable

[acgvar]

Greetings! I really appreciate the huge effort to share the CESM2 to a wider community.

I was inspecting the `fsurdat` file:

/gs/hs1/tga-wrf-guc/share/CESM2/cesm/inputdata/lnd/clm2/surfdata_map/release-clm5.0.18/surfdata_0.9x1.25_hist_78pfts_CMIP6_simyr1850_c190214.nc

The `ht_roof` has the following details:

        double HT_ROOF(numurbl, lsmlat, lsmlon) ;
                HT_ROOF:long_name = "height of roof" ;
                HT_ROOF:units = "meters" ;

When I looked at the values, they tend to be integer values greater than 100 in some regions. I used the `ncdump` function and `ncview` to inspect the values. I guess there is a specific source code that scales this down to more realistic values? Is it possible to know the module that scales this?

Thank you.

 

[oleson]

Those large values are associated with the "tall building district" (TBD) type which is intended to represent downtown urban areas. The TBD urban density type is generally quite small in area. See the following publication for a description of the urban data:

Jackson, T.L., J.J. Feddema, K.W. Oleson, G.B. Bonan, and J.T. Bauer, 2010: Parameterization of urban characteristics for global climate modeling, A. Assoc. Am. Geog., 100:4, 848-865, DOI:10.1080/00045608.2010.497328.