Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory (BUCL): Experiences, Challenges and Applications of an Urban Temperature Network (original) (raw)
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Existing Urban Meteorological Networks have an important role to play as testbeds for inexpensive and more sustainable measurement techniques which are now becoming possible in our increasingly smart cities. The Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory (BUCL) is a near real-time, high-resolution urban meteorological network (UMN) of automatic weather stations and inexpensive, non-standard air temperature sensors. The network has recently been implemented with an initial focus on monitoring urban heat, infrastructure and health applications. A number of UMNs exist worldwide; however BUCL is novel in its density, the low-cost nature of the sensors and the use of proprietary Wi-Fi networks. This paper provides an overview the logistical aspects of implementing an UMN testbed at such a density, including selecting appropriate urban sites, testing and calibrating low-cost, non-standard equipment, implementing strict quality assurance/quality control mechanisms (including metadata), and utilising pre-existing Wi-Fi networks to transmit data. Also included are visualisations of data collected by the network, including data from the July 2013 UK heatwave as well as highlighting potential applications. The paper is an open invitation to use the facility as a testbed for evaluating models and/or other non-standard observation techniques such as those generated via crowdsourcing techniques.
The Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory—A high density, urban meteorological dataset, from 2012–2014
Scientific Data, 2016
There is a paucity of urban meteorological observations worldwide, hindering progress in understanding and mitigating urban meteorological hazards and extremes. High quality urban datasets are required to monitor the impacts of climatological events, whilst providing data for evaluation of numerical models. The Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory was established as an exemplar network to meet this demand for urban canopy layer observations. It comprises of an array of 84 wireless air temperature sensors nested within a coarser array of 24 automatic weather stations, with observations available between June 2012 and December 2014. data routinely underwent quality control, follows the ISO 8601 naming format and benefits from extensive site metadata. The data have been used to investigate the structure of the urban heat island in Birmingham and its associated societal and infrastructural impacts. The network is now being repurposed into a testbed for the assessment of crowd-sourced and...
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Temperature is the most used meteorological variable for a large number of applications in urban resilience planning, but direct measurements using traditional sensors are not affordable at the usually required spatial density. On the other hand, spaceborne remote sensing provides surface temperatures at medium to high spatial resolutions, almost compatible with the needed requirements. However, in this case, limitations are represented by cloud conditions and passing times together with the fact that surface temperature is not directly comparable to air temperature. Various methodologies are possible to take benefits from both measurements and analysis methods, such as direct assimilation in numerical models, multivariate analysis, or statistical interpolation. High-resolution thermal fields in the urban environment are also obtained by numerical modelling. Several codes have been developed to resolve at some level or to parameterize the complex urban boundary layer and are used fo...
Conventional approach in the investigation of urban climate of Novi Sad has been done through simple urban-rural air temperature differences. These inter-urban air temperature differences showed how much is city warmer than its surroundings, so-called urban heat island (UHI) effect. Temperature differences exist inside the city as well. To get to know the intensity of these intra-urban temperature differences, installation of meteorological stations in different parts of the city or mobile measurements are needed. In 2012 started IPA HUSRB project made by Department of Climatology and Landscape Ecology (University of Szeged) and Faculty of Sciences (University of Novi Sad). The main goal of this project is the development and installation of wireless urban meteorological network (temperature and relative humidity sensors) in Szeged and Novi Sad. Before the deployment of sensors, necessary metadata about each potential urban meteorological station site needs to be collected. Field work, collected metadata and Stewart and Oke climate-based classification system from 2012 were used for defining the potential urban meteorological stations sites on the territory of the city of Novi Sad (Serbia) and its surroundings.
Toward a Standardized Metadata Protocol for Urban Meteorological Networks
With the growing number and significance of urban meteorological networks (UMNs) across the world it is becoming critical to establish a standard metadata protocol. Indeed, a review of existing UMNs indicate large variations in the quality, quantity and availability of metadata containing technical information (i.e. equipment, communication methods) and network practices (i.e. quality assurance/quality control and data management procedures). Without such metadata, the utility of UMNs is greatly compromised. There is a need to bring together the currently disparate sets of guidelines to ensure informed and well documented future deployments. This should significantly improve the quality, and therefore, the applicability of the high resolution data available from such networks. Here the first metadata protocol for UMNs is proposed, drawing on current recommendations for urban climate stations and identified best practice in existing networks.