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Description
Describe the bug
This is a potential bug for surface roughness calculation/diagnostic inconsistency when activating urban physics as reported in the WRF forum: https://forum.mmm.ucar.edu/threads/why-does-the-drag-actually-decrease-and-wind-speed-increase-after-enabling-the-urban-canopy-model.25191/#post-59296
The wrfout ZNT/Z0 variables are the values from land model calculations assuming "nature" vegetation type when UCM is activated. The ZNT/Z0 values after passing to urban physics are updated to be Z0C (e.g., from urban parameter table) within urban physics modules for urban physics calculation. However, these updated urban ZNT/Z0 is not computed to be an updated grid-mean values to pass back to other wrf physics or wrfout modules, which appears to be a bug. At least, there should be a weighted average grid-level mean ZNT/Z0 as a diagnostic output variable to be used by other WRF physics. These does not affect the urban physics calculations though.
Proposed Solution
One solution would be to update the grid-mean ZNT/Z0 by weighted averaging urban and non-urban ZNT/Z0 after urban physics call so that other WRF physics and wrf output can use the correct surface roughness values.