eWUDAPT: Bringing eScience to Urban Climate Mapping and Modelling

The world is rapidly urbanizing and now more than half of the world’s population lives in cities which is expected to further increase in the future. This requires dedicated management to ensure that cities and their surroundings remain livable, healthy and productive. Urban morphology, i.e. the form of the city, alters the local environment, and therefore impacts urban weather, air quality and climate. Both for long term planning of sustainable cities and for short term planning for urban energy demand, representation of the urban morphology in numerical atmospheric models is essential and critical. However, we are still hampered by a lack of data or data of insufficient quality.

In this workshop we aim to enhance the scientific understanding of urban atmospheres by digitalization of all relevant ingredients, and by bringing together key scientific knowledge, methodologies, fragmentary datasets, and e-research infrastructure. The workshop will focus on three themes:

1.)    Mapping the urban environment

2.)    Urban Weather and Climate observations

3.)    Modeling the urban environment

Each theme is represented by a focus group that will create specific products to be used by the others. The participants are various experts within this specific scientific field. In addition, three e-research scientists will actively participate in assisting the focus groups in creating their products.

Scientific organizers:

Alexander Baklanov (WMO, Geneva, Switzerland)  

Bert Holtslag (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)  

Gerald Mills (University College Dublin, Ireland)  

Gert-Jan Steeneveld (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)  

Natalie Theeuwes (University of Reading, United Kingdom) 

Lorentz-eScience call 
This workshop is winner of the Lorentz-eScience call 2016. For more information see our Lorentz-eScience program.