Impact of accurate representation of Land Use/Land Cover over the National Capital Region (NCR) Delhi in simulating Monsoon Weather

As cities around the world are growing at a rapid pace, the need to understand their impact on the regional to local climate has become more crucial.  Urban settlements are more affected by extreme weather than rural areas. Localised circulation patterns, the topography of the region and micro-scale systems induced by Land-Use Land-Cover (LULC) can modify regional flows to produce unique patterns in the urban region. National Capital Region (NCR) - Delhi, the second biggest urban settlement globally, reported an almost ~20 fold increase in urban and built-up areas in past decades. NCR urbanisation during the past few decades caused a corresponding increase up to 3–5 and 2–4 K in values of LST and T2m, respectively, while a decrease in the magnitude of surface winds up to 2 m s⁻¹ was noted. The LULC plays a crucial role in meteorological models because they determine the crustal properties that interfere with the exchange of energy, moisture, and momentum between the land surface and the atmosphere. This study attempts to assess the impact of legitimate present-state LULC based on AWiFS in the mesoscale model for simulating monsoon weather over NCR Delhi. The newly implemented AWiFS LULC precisely distinguishes the default MODIS classification used in the model framework. Overall, the AWiFS-based simulations showed an improved performance in predicting the study period during the monsoon.