When can a high-resolution simulation over complex terrain be called LES?

Abstract

The ceaseless rise of computational power leads to a continuous increase of the resolution of the numerical models of the atmosphere. It is found today that operational models are run at horizontal resolutions near 1 km whereas research exercises for flows over complex terrain use resolutions at the hectometer scale. Horizontal resolutions of 100 mor finer have been used to performLarge-Eddy Simulations (LES) for some specific regimes like, e.g., the atmospheric boundary-layer in idealized configurations. However, to use the name “Large-Eddy Simulation” implies to be able to resolve at least the largest turbulent energetic eddies, which is almost impossible to reach with resolutions of the order of 100m for a real case, where many different processes occur linked to different scales, many of them even smaller than 100m. Therefore, LES is an inappropriate denomination for these numerical exercises, that may simply be called High-Resolution Mesoscale Simulations.