Large Eddy Simulations of Tall Vegetated Canopies: Homogeneous Canopies, Part 1

The simulations associated with this dataset form part of a broader investigation into the effects of heterogeneity in tall vegetated canopies, designed to emulate structural and aerodynamic characteristics of the Amazon rainforest. All cases are forced by a geostrophic wind of 9 m s⁻¹ under neutrally stratified conditions. The homogeneous canopy cases differ in their vertical Leaf Area Density (LAD) distributions. Specifically, the case "Hom_Amazon_9mps" represents the canonical Amazon forest, characterized by a canopy height of hc = 39 m and a total Leaf Area Index (LAI) of 7.05. The canopy height is fixed across all cases. The remaining homogeneous configurations, i.e. "Hom_eq_gaps_9mps" and "Hom_eq_patches_9mps" feature a reduced LAD profile, with a corresponding LAI value of 5.36. Simulations were conducted using a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) domain of size (Lx, Ly, Lz) = (2π, 2π, 1) km, where x, y, and z denote the streamwise, spanwise, and vertical directions. The computational grid consists of (Nx, Ny, Nz) = (256,256,256) points, yielding a spatial resolution of (Δx, Δy, Δz) = (24.5, 24.5, 3.9) m. An aerodynamic roughness length of z0 = 0.01 m is imposed at the surface. Time integration employs a fixed time step of Δt = 0.05 s. Simulations are spun up for 25 h, and data are sampled over the final 5 h of integration. To facilitate data access, a MATLAB script (main_load_snapshots.m) and a supporting function (load_snaps.m) are provided. These scripts load the binary files and organize them into 4D arrays for subsequent analysis.