Category Archives: Urban meteorology

Improving Hydrological Predictions Of Land System Models

Posted on 7 December, 2020 by danaallen

By: Thibault Hallouin Given the existence of feedbacks between the Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, hydrological knowledge (e.g. soil moisture and open water available for evaporation and plant transpiration) is as critical to atmospheric scientists, as meteorological knowledge is … Continue reading →

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People are in the cities – how could we provide the weather climate information they need?

Posted on 19 October, 2020 by danaallen

By: Sue Grimmond Climate services provide climate information to help individuals and organizations make climate smart decisions. Climate services work by integrating high quality meteorological data (temperature, rainfall, wind, soil moisture and ocean conditions); as well as maps, risk and vulnerability … Continue reading →

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Do urban heat islands provide thunderstorm predictability?

Posted on 28 September, 2020 by danaallen

By: Suzanne Gray  The UK and the rest of western Europe experienced a heatwave in the middle of August 2020 with temperatures exceeding 30oC in Reading. Fortunately for us this was broken by a heavy downpour on the afternoon of … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Predictability, Thunder Storms, Urban meteorology | Leave a comment

Trading Evil lasers for MAGIC Doppler lidars

Posted on 4 November, 2019 by danaallen

By: Janet Barlow  Lasers may have an evil reputation in Hollywood, but they are very good for observing urban meteorology. We recently took part in the MAGIC project field campaign in London, deploying a Doppler lidar to measure wind-speed around … Continue reading →

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The sky is the limit – How tall buildings affect wind and air quality

Posted on 29 April, 2019 by danaallen

By: Denise Hertwig Based on current UN estimates, by 2050 over 6.6 billion people (68% of the total population) will be living in cities. Across the world, tall (> 50 m height) and super-tall (> 300 m) buildings already define … Continue reading →

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SuPy: An urban land surface model for Pythonista

Posted on 18 March, 2019 by danaallen

By: Ting Sun Python is now extensively employed by the atmospheric sciences community for data analyses and numerical modelling thanks to its simplicity and the large scientific Python ecosystem (e.g., PyData community). Although I cherish Mathematica as my native programming … Continue reading →

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Remodelling Building Design Sustainability from a Human Centred Approach (Refresh) project overview

Posted on 4 February, 2019 by danaallen

By: Hannah Gough In 2014, 54 % of the world’s population resided in an urban area and this is projected to rise to 66 % by 2050 (United Nations, 2014). It is also estimated that 90 % of people’s time in … Continue reading →

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The Role of Synoptic Meteorology on UK Air Pollution

Posted on 14 August, 2017 by Stephen Burt

By Chris Webber In the past year the issue of air pollution within the UK has been elevated, driven by the loss of life that it causes (in 2013 > 500,000 years of UK lives lost due to air pollution … Continue reading →

Posted in Aerosols, Atmospheric chemistry, Boundary layer, Environmental hazards, Urban meteorology | Tagged | Leave a comment

Responding to the threat of hazardous pollutant releases in cities

Posted on 24 July, 2017 by Met Department

By Denise Hertwig High population density and restricted evacuation options make cities particularly vulnerable to threats posed by air-borne contaminants released into the atmosphere through industrial accidents or terrorist attacks. In order to issue evacuation or sheltering advice to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Environmental hazards, Numerical modelling, Urban meteorology | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Can the use of CCTV images improve urban flooding forecasts?

Posted on 3 April, 2017 by Stephen Burt

By Sanita Vetra-Carvalho Urban flooding can result from intense rainfall, flash floods, coastal floods or river floods, the same as in rural areas. However, in cities, unlike in rural areas, there is very little open soil available for water storage … Continue reading →

Posted in data assimilation, Environmental hazards, Hydrology, Urban meteorology | Leave a comment