Advanced Climate Technology Urban Atmospheric Laboratory (ACTUAL)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Reading
Department Name: Meteorology
Abstract
Most of the world's population now lives in cities, which are already responsible for 80% of the world's carbon emissions. London's energy use soared during the 2003 heatwave - such extreme temperatures are predicted to be a regular occurrence by the 2050s. Our ageing urban infrastructure needs transformation to withstand the 21st century climate, without worsening it by increased use of energy. But buildings in urban areas don't just withstand local climate: they change it. This interaction is not generally recognised by engineers and planners working to transform urban infrastructure, partly because the science on which design standards are based does not incorporate understanding of urban climate. Adaptation of existing and new buildings to withstand warmer futures sustainably needs both legislation and standards - but policy cannot be formulated without evidence. Planning for sustainable cities on the basis of local climate has been hampered by lack of representative data. This is partially due to the difficulties of making representative full-scale measurements in urban areas with traditional, ground-based methods. Remote sensing techniques - using lasers and sound pulses to probe the air above the buildings at a distance - can provide a cutting-edge solution to the problem. The aim of this proposal is create the Advanced Climate Technology Urban Atmospheric Laboratory (ACTUAL), consisting of the tools to monitor and simulate urban climate from city down to building scale; and to integrate results directly into engineering and policy areas which transform urban infrastructure. The Core Project will be to build ACTUAL, requiring considerable development of instrumentation and data logging systems, with the goal of providing robust, representative climate data for London within 5 years. The research theme over the first five years is sustainable adaptation of buildings to a warmer London climate. Three interlinked Research Strands will exploit ACTUAL data within this theme: 1) improving urban climate simulation 2) assessing the effect of building layout on city ventilation and 3) developing tools to optimise urban renewable energy generation. The project brings together a diverse selection of engineers, meteorologists, local authority policy makers, and engineering consultants. Ensuring clear knowledge exchange between these areas is essential: so throughout the project a Virtual Urban Environment will be developed (City-VUE). This consists of integrated web-based and virtual educational activities to engage schools, the public, policy makers and engineers. ACTUAL and City-VUE will become key resources for engineers to underpin sustainable transformation of other aspects of urban infrastructure into the 21st century.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Janet Barlow (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Barlow J
(2017)
Developing a Research Strategy to Better Understand, Observe, and Simulate Urban Atmospheric Processes at Kilometer to Subkilometer Scales
in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Barlow J
(2011)
A wind-tunnel study of flow distortion at a meteorological sensor on top of the BT Tower, London, UK
in Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics
Barlow J
(2014)
Observations of urban boundary layer structure during a strong urban heat island event
in Environmental Fluid Mechanics
Barlow J
(2014)
Progress in observing and modelling the urban boundary layer
in Urban Climate
Bradley S
(2015)
A sodar for profiling in a spatially inhomogeneous urban environment A sodar for profiling in a spatially inhomogeneous urban environment
in Meteorologische Zeitschrift
Drew D
(2013)
Observations of wind speed profiles over Greater London, UK, using a Doppler lidar
in Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics
Drew D
(2015)
The importance of accurate wind resource assessment for evaluating the economic viability of small wind turbines
in Renewable Energy
Drew D
(2013)
Estimating the potential yield of small wind turbines in urban areas: A case study for Greater London, UK
in Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics
Halios C
(2017)
Observations of the Morning Development of the Urban Boundary Layer Over London, UK, Taken During the ACTUAL Project
in Boundary-Layer Meteorology
Helfter C
(2016)
Spatial and temporal variability of urban fluxes of methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide above London, UK
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
| Description | Our key findings (and papers) include: 1) (Drew et al. 2013, Lane et al. 2013): To design tall buildings in urban areas, engineers need to estimate the forces which will be exerted on the structure by the wind during in its lifetime. To achieve this, an accurate representation of the wind speed profile in strong wind conditions is required. This is typically provided by wind engineering tools, which translate measurements collected at a nearby reference rural site. However, due to a lack of meteorological observations in urban areas, there has been little validation of these models. As part of the ACTUAL project (Advanced Climate Technology Urban Atmospheric Laboratory) a pulsed Doppler lidar has been installed on the rooftop of the WCC building in central London to obtain wind speed profile data for a long observation period. This data has been used to assess the accuracy the wind engineering tools. When applied to the multiple changes in surface roughness identified using the morphological approach, the non-equilibrium wind speed profile model developed by Deaves (1981) provides a good representation of the urban wind speed profile. For heights below 500 m, the predicted wind speed remains within the 95% confidence interval of the measured data. However, when the surface roughness is estimated using land use as a proxy, the model tends to overestimate the wind speed, particularly for very high wind speed periods. These results highlight the importance of a detailed assessment of the nature of the surface when estimating the wind speed above an urban surface. 2) (Barlow et al. 2014, Halios et al. 2014) Amongst the meteorological characteristics that describe the status of the lower atmosphere where humans live, Mixing Height (MH) and wind turbulence are of importance. MH represents the height reached by pollutants after release from sources at ground-level. Apart from pollution levels, the surface and air temperature we experience at the ground relate with the MH. Because the urban surface becomes hotter than rural, the air parcels rise higher in the urban environment and thus the urban MH is higher than rural MH. During a case study we found that urban MH is 3 times higher than rural MH. Buildings are also affected by wind fluctuations which could vary with height; wind variations could make the building vibrate. In ACTUAL we study wind turbulence in the urban environment using a Doppler lidar. 3) (Lane, 2014) Accurate urban weather forecasts are important for activities like winter road gritting, air quality forecasts and flood warnings. In order to verify these forecasts there must be extensive observations in cities for comparison with the model. ACTUAL observations have been used to validate the Met Office's UK forecasting model. During sunny, calm conditions leading to strong urban heat islands, the model tends to underestimate surface heat fluxes and mixing heights. This could impact on surface temperature predictions, leading potentially to over-prediction. Changing the representation/parametrization of the physics of heat transfer between the city and the atmosphere improves the simulations. 4) (Nogueira-Neto, 2015) The study of turbulent heat transfer from urban surfaces is still a relatively new subject, which aims to quantify and parameterize heat fluxes for different urban morphologies. This is important for prediction of thermal performance of buildings, and thermal comfort. One of the units of the urban morphology, the street canyon, is perhaps the best understood morphology in terms of its flow dynamics. This study has quantified how well the streets within cities are ventilated, how the wind affects thermal comfort and has found simple ways to represent these quantities numerically with Arup's Outdoor-ROOM. The work has used a wind tunnel to generate data to quantify these parameters and modified simple mathematical models to find what influence different shapes can have on heat transfer, i.e. different roof shape. 5) (Brocklehurst, 2014) Much of London's older building stock may struggle to improve energy efficiency. One of several factors which will lead to higher energy use is the rate of air exchange between indoors and outdoors, particularly in older less air-tight buildings. Unintentional air exchange through cracks in building fabric is defined as infiltration. This work aims to measure the infiltration rate in a real urban building in response to local meteorological conditions so as to be able to assess what causes higher infiltration and compare to simulations. Results have found that wind direction is a strong determinant of infiltration rate in an urban area, as well as windspeed, which is currently used in Building Energy Model formulations. Simple models of windspeed within the urban canopy have been tested against windtunnel results, some showing some skill in improving prediction of infiltration. |
| Exploitation Route | 1) our datasets have been directly useful for various stakeholders in the area of sustainable built environments. For example, Arup as engineering consultants; the Met Office for improved urban forecasting through validation against our data; Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, ventilation/ingress of pollutants in buildings, etc. 2) Our scientific outputs are well cited, and numerous invitations to speak at international conferences/symposia show wide interest in the work 3) Extensive data analysis on 4 years of data collected in London will be disseminated further through CIBSE, the Greater London Authority. Interaction with the London Climate Change Partnership has started, through inclusion of ACTUAL data in the report "Observing London". 4) Follow on funds were won under the EPSRC Challenging Engineering scheme - outcomes from ACTUAL directly inform the Refresh project (EP/K021893/1). |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Construction,Energy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Retail,Transport |
| URL | http://www.actual.ac.uk |
| Description | Over half of the world's population live in urban areas and this percentage is continually on the rise. Cities and towns are already responsible for over 70% of the world's energy-related carbon emissions. The city of London is home to 8.17 million residents and hosts 800,000 commuting workers per day (2011 data) leading to heavy energy demand (152,000 GWh of energy was consumed by the city in 2008). The urban heat island effect means that cities are generally warmer than rural areas and take longer to cool down overnight. During heatwaves, such as summer 2003, the temperature difference between the urban and rural areas becomes significant and energy demand for air conditioning dramatically increases. Climate model projections indicate that extreme temperatures will become a regular occurrence by the 2050s. We need to transform London's ageing urban infrastructure to withstand the 21st century climate, but improvements must be made with energy efficiency and the urban climate in mind. Changing the urban environment to suit a warmer climate is not a one-way process. Buildings in urban areas don't just withstand local climate: they change it. This interaction is not generally recognised by engineers and planners working to transform urban infrastructure, partly because the science on which design standards are based does not incorporate understanding of urban climate. Sustainable design of new structures and adaptation of existing buildings for a warmer future needs both legislation and standards - but policy cannot be formulated without evidence. Planning for sustainable cities on the basis of local climate has been hampered by lack of representative data. This is partially due to the difficulties of making representative full-scale measurements in urban areas with traditional, ground-based methods. ACTUAL delivers a platform for the development of remote sensing techniques to provide a cutting-edge solution to the problem. This grant has allowed us to develop a deeper understanding of urban climate processes at a range of spatial scale from an individual building up to the city scale. Data has been made available on our website and has received numerous requests from both inside and outside of academia. Specific stakeholder contact has included: 1) The UK Met Office, through a CASE award, has used our results in the development and validation of the 1 km grid version of the Unified Model (UKV) over urban areas. This should improve the forecasting of small-scale weather events and processes relating specifically to urban areas such as the urban heat island. Contact continues through the MO Urban Working Group. This has wide impact for downstream users of forecasters, as well as being of interest to the wind engineering community in terms of improved wind data sources. Results have been disseminated more widely to policy makers and practioners dealing with healthy city policies in Hong Kong (2014) and Australia (CSIRO event, 2012) 2) Research from this grant was used to produce a 'map' of wind speeds across central London and test various models used by the wind renewable energy sector. Dissemination to the wind engineering community through a prestige lecture at the European and African Conference on Wind Engineering (EACWE, 2013, Cambridge). 3) Air flow in and around an empty building in London was studied in detail. The infiltration rates were calculated and compared to models used by industry to predict infiltration. This was disseminated to professional practitioners through a Chartered Institute for Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) event in 2014, and to emergency response and air quality practioners/policymakers/scientists through an event organised by the Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling Liaison Committee in 2013. 4) Arup have benefited directly from PhD work by Wagner Nogueira-Neto on improving their ability to model thermal comfort by their Outdoor-ROOM model. Wind tunnel experiments were used to study more complex building arrays, and simple mathematical formulations were included in the model. Other results and impacts are ongoing. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2009 |
| Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Construction,Education,Energy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Retail,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Croucher Advanced Study Institute, Dec 2015, Hong Kong |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| URL | http://www.arch.cuhk.edu.hk/asi2015/en/Home/news.htm |
| Description | Urban Physics summer school (2013, 2014, 2015) |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Training that I provided through the Urban Physics summer school, based on data and results from the ACTUAL project, has led to contact with a member of the Singapore Institute for High Performance Computing, a government laboratory. This has led to an invitation to speak at a subsequent workshop in Singapore in April 2016 at which government scientists, policy makers and academics will be present. The focus is a project to improve national weather forecasts for Singapore and improved modelling of urban climate for climate change adaptation purposes. |
| URL | http://sts.bwk.tue.nl/windengineering/Urban_Physics_2013.htm |
| Description | Refresh: Remodeling Building Design Sustainability from a Human Centered Approach |
| Amount | £677,741 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/K021893/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2013 |
| End | 06/2018 |
| Title | CEDA |
| Description | Centre for Environmental Data Archival (CEDA), including data generated during the EPSRC-funded ACTUAL project, the NERC-funded Clearflo project. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Data has been used during collaboration with UK Met Office to test forecast output/model performance |
| URL | http://www.ceda.ac.uk/ |
| Title | Urban Fluid Mechanics Data Portal |
| Description | The Urban Fluid Dynamics Data portal is a searchable database of datasets relevant to research and design of indoor and outdoor built environments. It was set up as part of the EPSRC-funded UK Fluids Network Special Interest Group on Urban Fluid Dynamics. Work to establish the beta version was done by Zheng-tong Xie (Southampton Uni), Ivo Suter and Maarten Van Reeuvijk (Imperial College) and Janet Barlow (Reading Uni). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Too early to capture impact (launched Dec 2018) |
| URL | https://dataportal.urbanfluidmechanics.org/data-portal |
| Description | Arup |
| Organisation | Arup Group |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | CASE award PhD studentship thesis, wind tunnel work to verify numerical model of urban heat exchange with buildings, for future development of Arup's modelling tools |
| Collaborator Contribution | CASE PhD supervision, attendance at Project Advisory Group meetings |
| Impact | PhD thesis, publications in preparation |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Met Office |
| Organisation | Meteorological Office UK |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Testing different configurations of Met Office Unified Model (UKV) weather forecast model/numerical weather prediction - including operational and research versions - against data collected in London from EPSRC-funded ACTUAL project |
| Collaborator Contribution | CASE award PhD supervision; ongoing interaction with Met Office staff about national strategy in Urban Meteorology, through occasional MO Urban Working Group meetings. |
| Impact | 2014 PhD thesis; publications in preparation |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | "Towards a Healthy City" workshop (Jan 2014, Chinese University of Hong Kong) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | One day workshop co-organised between CUHK and HK Green Building Council included speakers on public health, planning and research underpinning policy-making in Hong Kong. This and other later visits to workshops in Hong Kong are leading to a partnership with the Chinese University of Hong Kong (and other HK Universities) in research activities that feed into their Air Ventilation Assessment planning policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.arch.cuhk.edu.hk/server1/staff2/szewai/KT_web/en/KT%20sources/2013/Poster_workshop.pdf |
| Description | Barlow J.F., Building an urban atmospheric laboratory in London: lessons learnt from a decade of experiments, 14th March 2012, CSIRO Urban Science Symposium, 13-15 March 2012, Melbourne, Australia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk describing urban atmospheric observations in London to mostly Australian government scientists and practitioners, stimulated discussion, widened network. One contact joined a University of Reading steering group. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | https://wiki.csiro.au/display/CSSNetworks/1+Urban+Science+Symposium,+13-15+March+2012 |
| Description | Barlow JF Boundary Layer Meteorology, Prestige lecture, 6th European and African Conference on Wind Engineering, 7-11 July 2013 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Keynote lecture, led to book chapter, increased engagement in wind engineering community Led to invitation to join COST action TU1304, international panel assessing wind power resources in urban areas; invite to join UK Wind Engineering Society Steering Group |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/eacwe/index.aspx |
| Description | Barlow JF Measuring fluxes over urban areas: results from observations in London, 13th February 2012, Prime Minister's Initiative 2 (PMI2) workshop, British Council sponsored, Newcastle University, 13-14th Feb 2012 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk led to discussion, network widening Discussion with academic partner about further work |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Barlow JF Progress in measuring and modelling the urban boundary layer, 8th International Conference on Urban Climatology, Dublin 6-10th August 2012, keynote talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Keynote lecture, led to review paper, discussion, network widening, influencing research agenda Talk led to research review paper in international peer reviewed journal; other invitations to do talks |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | http://urban-climate.com/wp3/about/icuc8-2 |
| Description | Barlow JF Urban Meteorology - lessons learnt from a decade of experiments in London, UK Wind Engineering Society Conference, Southampton 10-12th September 2012, keynote talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Keynote lecture at international conference, stimulated discussion/participation/new projects Stimulated increased collaboration with the wind engineering community; shared knowledge from urban climate studies with engineering community |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Barlow JF, Air Pollution Research in London, The Cleaner Air Conference, Greater London Authority, 22 Jan 2013 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | talk led to discussions Engagement with Greater London Authority on Cearflo outcomes, with wider local authority and government reps through Air Pollution Research in London knowledge exchange network |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/archives/cleaner_air_conference_agenda_220113.pdf |
| Description | Barlow JF, Atmospheric processes and urban air pollution, talk to MSc students at UCL, London, 14th Nov 2012 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk was formal part of MSc students's education at UCL led to increased research contact with UCL academic (Liora Malkhi-Epstein) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Barlow JF, Climate Change and the Built Environment, visit by Ian Boyd (DEFRA) to Uni of Reading, 3 July 2013 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | talk sparked questions giving a steer on future research priorities, ie microscale pollutant exposure Relationship between DEFRA and Walker Institute at University of Reading strengthened |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Barlow JF, Experience in using Doppler lidars: London (summer 2012), COST EG-CLIMET meeting, 26-28 Sep 2012, University of Reading |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk led to discussion afterwards invitation to join follow-on COST European activity |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | http://cfa.aquila.infn.it/wiki.eg-climet.org/index.php5/Final_Report#Available_Techniques_4 |
| Description | Barlow, J.F., Technologies for sustainable built environments (TSBE), 15th March 2012, CSIRO Urban Science Symposium, 13-15 March 2012, Melbourne, Australia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk led to discussion, widened network I gave advice and input to an Australian research (Nigel Tapper) setting up an Industrial Doctorate Centre. Wasim Saman joined the TSBE CDT Steering Group as international representative. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | https://wiki.csiro.au/display/CSSNetworks/1+Urban+Science+Symposium,+13-15+March+2012 |
| Description | International workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited speaker at workshop in Singapore on "Urban microclimate - opportunities and challenges", led to discussions around using microclimate data for building design |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Invited talk at CIBSE Building Simulation/Natural Ventilation groups joint seminar, Modelling Air Movement: CFD Simulation vs. Experimental Methods, 30th April 2014 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | talk led to discussion, network widening invitations to visit commercial stakeholders for further talks, interest in generating guidelines from data |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | JF Barlow, AF Brocklehurst, S Upton, The effect of urban flows on pollutant ingress into buildings - results from experiments in central London, Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling Liaison Committee Annual Forum, Harwell, 17 Sep 2013 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk sparked discussion, network widening Talk led to invited talk at Uni of Cambridge, better links to Building Research Establishment |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | JF Barlow, CR Wood, SE Lane, L Caporosa, SILD Bohnenstengel, SE Belcher, F Di Giuseppe and H Lean, Evaluating Numerical Weather Prediction Simulations of Urban Boundary Layer Structure, Intl Workshop Urban Weather Climate, 12-15 Jul 2011, Beijing, China |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | talk as part of workshop to share international best practice in urban weather observations and modelling Widened international network, particularly in China |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | JF Barlow, M Gouvea, S Grimmond, S Kotthaus, SE Lane, L Pauscher, H Ward and CR Wood, Probing the urban boundary layer: the ACTUAL project, RMS Conference, June 2011, Exeter, UK |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | poster sparked discussion increased collaboration with the Met Office, particularly participation in Met Office Urban Working Group influencing development of weather forecasting in urban areas |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | JF Barlow, T Dunbar, CR Wood, E Nemitz, M Gallagher, and R Harrison, Doppler lidar observations of urban boundary layer dynamics in London, UK, AMS 19th Symposium BLT, 2-6 Aug Keystone, US |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk stimulated discussion afterwards Wider interest in London work using Doppler lidars to observe urban atmosphere |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
| Description | Janet F. Barlow, C.R. Wood, D.R. Drew, W. Nogueira-Neto, S.E. Lane, A. Brocklehurst, C.S.B. Grimmond, A.G. Robins, S.G. Bradley and P. Klein, Impact of urban boundary layer processes on sustainable building design, Uni of Helsinki invited talk, Dec 2012 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk led to discussion Plans for collaboration with University of Helsinki and Finnish Meteorological Service |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | MOOC: Our Changing Climate |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), one week focused on Cities, and we included material drawn from the ACTUAL project on urban climate and adaptation policy in London. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014,2015 |
| URL | https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/our-changing-climate |
| Description | News articles |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 2013, 20th April - contribution to New Scientist article "Oases of Cool" 2015, 23rd Feb - article in Weatherwatch column, The Guardian |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2015 |
| URL | http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/23/weatherwatchuk-environment |
| Description | Schools Outreach |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Repeated work experience days for school pupils across the region hosted at the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading. Lecture and exercise on "urban meteorology", developed with advice from Royal Meteorological Society. Material and video on mapping urban winds using bubbles to be included in forthcoming MOOC (2016). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015,2016 |
| Description | TV appearances |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 2010, 20th Sep - participant in BBC London programme "Wild weather - climate in the city", showcasing roof-top measurements in London 2011, 10th Jan - participant in BBC Horizon programme "What is One Degree?", showcasing measurements on top of BT Tower, London 2012, 8th August - interview about Clearflo project on BBC News at Ten 2013, 17th July - interview on BBC News 24 about summer heatwave 2013, 22nd July - interview on BBC Radio Five Live about summer heatwave 2014, 24th July - interview on BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show about summer heatwave 2015, 30th June - interview on ITN News at Ten, commenting on Committee on Climate Change report (general outcome is further requests to do media coverage; occasional links made to general public, private sector companies, etc) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015 |
| Description | Urban Physics International Summer School |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Over 100 participants each year, taught them about urban microclimate, much discussion and subsequent invitation to participate in workshop in Singapore, April 2016 hosted by Building and Research Institute/Institute for High Performance Computing |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2015,2016 |
| URL | http://www.urbanphysics.org/ |