Numerical simulation of non-neutral forest canopy flows at a site in North-Eastern France

Abstract. The flow over densely forested terrain under neutral and non-neutral conditions is considered using commercially available Computational Fluid Dynamics software. Results are validated against data from a site in North-Eastern France. It is shown that the effects of both neutral and stable atmospheric stratifications can be modelled numerically using state of the art methodologies whilst unstable stratifications are more difficult to simulate accurately. The sensitivity of the numerical model to parameters such as canopy height, canopy density and the turbulence modelling constant C_μ is also assessed.