Between progress and obstacles in urban climate interdisciplinary studies and knowledge transfer to society

Abstract

Cities modify their local climate, and at the same time they suffer from the local impacts of climate change. Our paper discusses the progress and obstacles in three active research topics that contribute to increasing the capability within the urban climate research community for transferring local climate knowledge to society. The first is linked to the production of urban surface descriptions useful for urban climate studies. The concept of local climate zones is now widely used to represent urban climate variability at the neighborhood scale. Land‐use, morphological, architectural, and social data are also needed, and those are being gathered using different approaches. The second is linked to the necessity for producing information directly connected to their effects on society. This requires a strong multidisciplinary approach, and nowadays impact studies are not limited to one dimension but instead cover multiple dimensions. The third is to transfer all this information to city practitioners, so that urban climate features are considered, among many other aspects, in city management. For urban planning, cartographic tools have been introduced to include urban climate diagnosis as well as recommendations for future urbanization.

Urban Climates and Climate Change

“…Great efforts are being made by urban climatologists to adapt or provide new methods and tools that facilitate the communication of knowledge. Those include adaptation of methods commonly used as modeling or cartographic tools to fit end users' needs, and the use of resources from other disciplines, typically human and social sciences, such as surveys or analysis of relevant policy documents such as government reports, white papers, and reports published by nongovernmental organizations (194).…”

“…Mahlkow et al (200) create exploratory and anticipatory storylines for 2040-2050 using constellation analysis for heat adaptation in urban planning for the case of Berlin. Finally, cartographic tools such as urban climate maps (Figure 7) are being used both for climate analysis at the local scale (29) and as intermediary objects (194) that facilitate communication and climate knowledge coproduction at all stages of the urban planning adaptation process. Finally, Baklanov et al (201) provide an overview of recent research activities of the WMO and collaborators in urban hydrometeorology, climate, and air pollution and introduce the concept of urban integrated weather, climate, and environment-related services, highlighting research needs for their realization.…”

Mapping Local Climate Zones and Their Applications in European Urban Environments: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Development Trends

“…Data derived from LCZ mapping and the results of climate analysis based on LCZ patterns may provide sufficient detail to engage local or regional administrative decisionmakers charged with addressing climate change issues, urban development and public health [169]. Such applications of LCZs in urban environments play an increasingly important role globally, a fact reinforced by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which is exploring the use of LCZ classification methods as a means towards addressing its new urban services mandates, as expressed in Resolution 68 and in the development of the Guide for Integrated Urban Hydrometeorological, Climate, and Environmental Services [170].…”

City-descriptive input data for urban climate models: Model requirements, data sources and challenges

“…Thunderstorm activity can either be concentrated in different parts of the city or be enhanced above or downstream of the city (Shepherd, 2005). In such a complex multi-dimensional and multi-objective decision environment, pertinent and clear, decision-relevant information is indispensable for stakeholders, e.g., for fine-scale weather forecasting in cities during sporting events (Joe et al, 2017) or for urban planning (Hidalgo et al, 2018).…”