ICUC12-291, updated on 21 May 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/icuc12-291
12th International Conference on Urban Climate
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
One-way coupling of WRF with the ADMS dispersion model to simulate heatwave impacts in a large Mediterranean city 
Erika Brattich1, Serena Falasca2,3, Annalisa Di Bernardino2, Margherita Erriu2, Andrea Faggi1, Stefania Argentini4, Giampietro Casasanta4, Andrea Cecilia4, Tiziano Maestri1, and Annamaria Siani2
Erika Brattich et al.
  • 1University of Bologna, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bologna, Italy (erika.brattich@unibo.it)
  • 2Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
  • 3Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment (ENEA), Rome, Italy
  • 4CNR, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC), Rome, Italy

The effects of rapid urbanization, poor air quality and climate change are synergistically interacting in several ways. Urban areas are recognized as major contributors to global climate change and air pollution, and in turn urban population is amongst the most significantly exposed to the adverse effects of air pollution and climate change. In a context of ever-increasing risks posed by extreme weather events to urban population, cities face the challenge of rapidly formulating novel adaptation plans and policies, taking into account emerging climate threats. 

To this scope, this work presents an innovative multiscale approach that couples the ADMS-Urban (Atmospheric Dispersion Modeling System in urban areas) dispersion model to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model to simulate impacts of extreme heat events on thermal comfort and pollutant dispersion. Developed within the framework of the "Urban hEat and pollution iSlands inTerAction in Rome and possible mitigation strategies” (RESTART) project, the coupling is achieved by assimilating high resolution WRF simulated meteorological fields (up to 500m) within the urban scale ADMS-Urban model.

By choosing a heat wave event impacting during the year 2022 (July 2022) on southern Europe and in particular on the large metropolitan city of Rome (Italy) as a case study, the work presents the sensitivity tests conducted to choose the most adequate configuration setup. The comparison of the simulations with hourly observations of meteorological variables and pollutant concentrations measured in Rome (13 weather stations and 16 air quality stations) demonstrates the capability of the coupled model to adequately reproduce spatial patterns of air pollutant concentrations and meteorological variables, thus making it a suitable tool tailored for careful urban planning evaluations of thermal comfort and pollutant dispersion under extreme heat conditions.

How to cite: Brattich, E., Falasca, S., Di Bernardino, A., Erriu, M., Faggi, A., Argentini, S., Casasanta, G., Cecilia, A., Maestri, T., and Siani, A.: One-way coupling of WRF with the ADMS dispersion model to simulate heatwave impacts in a large Mediterranean city , 12th International Conference on Urban Climate, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 7–11 Jul 2025, ICUC12-291, https://doi.org/10.5194/icuc12-291, 2025.

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