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Pages 1-14

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From page 1...
... Summary According to the United Nations, three out of five people will be living in cities worldwide by the year 2030. The United States continues to experience urbanization with its vast urban corridors on the east and west coasts.
From page 2...
... Maximum access to observational data in different categories from diverse sources 2. Regularly updated metadata of the urban observations using standardized urban protocols 3.
From page 3...
... A clear mechanism to help the urban meteorological community better identify user groups, reach out to them, and begin an ongoing dialogue to assess and better meet their needs has yet to be identified. It is important to recognize that there are multiple types of urban meteorological phenomena that have impacts on different types of users with different types of needs.
From page 4...
... providers) Urban Design • Vegetations stress index for cities/optimization (architects, urban planners, • Urban air quality municipal officials)
From page 5...
... • Heat and cold wave and physical stress forecasts with temporal and spatial resolution at city scale • Street-level air quality • Extreme precipitation event forecasts • Extreme localized heat/cold advisories, disease vector, and air quality advisories Security • Higher temporal, vertical, and horizontal spatial resolution (public safety and security data (e.g. urban boundary layer structure and mixing layer officials)
From page 6...
... Ultimately, it is essential that the urban meteorological community under tands what data are needed by end users that are not currently pro s duced and/or not conveyed in usable ways to end users. OBSERVING, MODELING, AND FORECASTING IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT Meteorological observations and forecasting are complex in cities be cause of the high spatial variability, unique physical characteristics of the urban canopy and its impacts on various processes, and challenges with model initialization.
From page 7...
... SUMMARY 7 TABLE S.2 Advances in Urban Forecasting and Monitoring Techniques Mechanism for Forecasting and Monitoring Advances in Technology Monitoring and Observations Urban campaigns Urban observation networks Ground-based remote sensing • Scanning radars • Radar profilers and sodar • Lidar • Radiometric profilers • Lightning detection Airborne/spaceborne remote sensing • Urban land cover • Thermal imaging and UHIs • Aerosols • Hydrometeorological parameters Modeling Systems Urbanization of numerical weather prediction models Atmospheric dispersion and urban air quality models Hydrological models Coastal storm surge-inundation models Urban observation networks with in situ sensors within the urban canopy have been deployed in several cities. However, the design of networks that capture the spatial variability within the urban canopy layer and integrate in situ observations with remote sensing instruments to obtain a threedimensional (3-d)
From page 8...
... 8 8 URBAN METEOROLOGY Prediction (NWP) models: use of empirical models, implementation of urban canopy parameterization schemes of varying complexity into climate and operations models, and coupling of microscale computational fluid dynam ics models with NWP models.
From page 9...
... SUMMARY 9 TABLE S.3 Emerging Technologies in Meteorological Forecasting and Monitoring Mechanism for Forecasting and Monitoring Emerging Technologies Modeling Systems Coupling modeling systems • Use of high resolution building data sets in urban weather and climate models • Coupling of atmospheric models from the global down to urban scales • Advanced exposure assessments • Application of weather and climate models for urban planning Data assimilation and probabilistic forecasting techniques Monitoring and Observations Advanced sensing techniques for the atmospheric boundary layer Nontraditional sensor networks (e.g., mobile vehicles for measurements; Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and text messaging alerts for reporting events and accessing data) Lastly, there is a great potential in utilizing nontraditional sensor net ontraditional sensor networks (i.e.
From page 10...
... 10 10 URBAN METEOROLOGY noted that a variety of data in each of these categories are available from different communities and that another need is to maximize the access to observational data in different categories from diverse sources by • securing access to existing data sets from previous urban campaigns, • assuring that long-term monitoring networks will serve needs of both the global and urban climate communities, and • integrating data sets from various monitoring networks into central data archives that can be easily accessed by the broader science and end user communities.
From page 11...
... SUMMARY 11 experiences and the difficulty in understanding each other's needs, practices, and capabilities. One example is the general difficulty in communicating probabilistic information to end users.1 Although some end users only need to know the most likely outcome among different options (e.g., the maximum temperature will likely be 57 degrees Fahrenheit)
From page 12...
... 12 12 URBAN METEOROLOGY difficulty of access, especially over some parts of a city. These measurements are also important for dispersion applications.
From page 13...
... SUMMARY 13 A combination of complementary approaches may help meet the challenge of mutual understanding between users and meteorologists. The first approach is the continued development of urban testbeds.
From page 14...
... 14 14 URBAN METEOROLOGY FINAL THOUGHTS The field of urban meteorology has grown considerably in the past 50 years, and with the increased growth of cities worldwide, including the United States, there is a pressing need for continued scientific advances within the field. As the capabilities within urban meteorology have im proved, the uses for urban weather information and its value to decision makers have increased.


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