Cities are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather episodes, which are expected to increase with climate change. Cities also influence their own local climate, for example, through the relative ...

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-environ-012320-083623

Urban Climates and Climate Change

To promote the advancement of novel observation techniques that may lead to new sources of information to help better understand the hydrological cycle, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) established the Measurements and Observations in the XXI century (MOXXI) Working Group in July 2013 The group comprises a growing community of tech-enthusiastic hydrologists that design and develop their own sensing systems, adopt a multi-disciplinary perspective in tackling complex observations, often use low-cost equipment intended for other applications to build innovative sensors, or perform opportunistic measurements This paper states the objectives of the group and reviews major advances carried out by MOXXI members toward the advancement of hydrological sciences Challenges and opportunities are outlined to provide strategic guidance for advancement of measurement, and thus discovery

/pdf/measurements-and-observations-in-the-xxi-century-moxxi-58wga5k3uk.pdf

Measurements and Observations in the XXI century (MOXXI): innovation and multi-disciplinarity to sense the hydrological cycle

Accurate and timely surface precipitation measurements are crucial for water resources management, agriculture, weather prediction, climate research, as well as ground validation of satellite-based precipitation estimates. However, the majority of the land surface of the earth lacks such data, and in many parts of the world the density of surface precipitation gauging networks is even rapidly declining. This development can potentially be counteracted by using received signal level data from the enormous number of microwave links used worldwide in commercial cellular communication networks. Along such links, radio signals propagate from a transmitting antenna at one base station to a receiving antenna at another base station. Rain-induced attenuation and, subsequently, path-averaged rainfall intensity can be retrieved from the signal’s attenuation between transmitter and receiver. Here, we show how one such a network can be used to retrieve the space–time dynamics of rainfall for an entire country (The Netherlands, ∼35,500 km2), based on an unprecedented number of links (∼2,400) and a rainfall retrieval algorithm that can be applied in real time. This demonstrates the potential of such networks for real-time rainfall monitoring, in particular in those parts of the world where networks of dedicated ground-based rainfall sensors are often virtually absent.

Three Years of Country-Wide Rainfall Maps from Cellular Communication Networks

Microwave backhaul links from cellular communication networks provide a valuable “opportunistic” source of high‐resolution space–time rainfall information, complementing traditional in situ measurement devices (rain gauges, disdrometers) and remote sensors (weather radars, satellites). Over the past decade, a growing community of researchers has, in close collaboration with cellular communication companies, developed retrieval algorithms to convert the raw microwave link signals, stored operationally by their network management systems, to hydrometeorologically useful rainfall estimates. Operational meteorological and hydrological services as well as private consulting firms are showing an increased interest in using this complementary source of rainfall information to improve the products and services they provide to end users from different sectors, from water management and weather prediction to agriculture and traffic control. The greatest potential of these opportunistic environmental sensors lies in those geographical areas over the land surface of the Earth where the densities of traditional rainfall measurement devices are low: mountainous and urban areas and the developing world. This article provides a nonexpert summary of the history, theory, challenges, and opportunities toward continental‐scale rainfall monitoring using microwave links from cellular communication networks.

Opportunistic remote sensing of rainfall using microwave links from cellular communication networks

In urban areas, dense atmospheric observational networks with high-quality data are still a challenge due to high costs to deploy and maintain them over time. Citizen weather stations (CWS) could be one answer to that issue. Since more and more owners of CWS share their measurement data publicly, crowdsourcing, i.e., the automated collection of large amounts of data from an undefined crowd of citizens, opens new pathways for atmospheric research. However, the most critical issue is found to be the quality of data from such networks. In this study, a statistically-based quality control (QC) is developed to identify suspicious air temperature (T) measurements from crowdsourced data sets. The newly developed QC exploits the combined knowledge of the dense network of CWS to statistically identify implausible measurements, independent of external reference data. The evaluation of the QC is performed using data from Netatmo CWS in Toulouse, France, and Berlin, Germany, over a one-year period (July 2016 to June 2017), comparing the quality-controlled data with data from a network of reference stations. The new QC efficiently identifies erroneous data due to solar exposition and siting issues, which are common error sources of CWS. Estimation of T is improved when averaging data from a group of stations within a restricted area rather than relying on data of individual CWS. However, a positive deviation in CWS data compared to reference data is identified, particularly for daily minimum T. To illustrate the transferability of the newly developed QC and the use of CWS data, a mapping of CWS data is performed over the city of Paris, France, where spatial density of CWS is especially high.

/pdf/development-and-application-of-a-statistically-based-quality-1zfk99bjr4.pdf

Development and Application of a Statistically-Based Quality Control for Crowdsourced Air Temperature Data

Crowdsourcing as a method to obtain and apply vast datasets is rapidly becoming prominent in meteorology, especially for urban areas where routine weather observations are scarce. Previous studies showed that smartphone battery temperature readings can be used to estimate the daily and citywide air temperature via a direct heat transfer model. This work extends model estimates by studying smaller temporal and spatial scales. The study finds the number of battery readings influences the accuracy of temperature retrievals. Optimal results are achieved for 700 or more retrievals. An extensive dataset of over 10 million battery temperature readings for estimating hourly and daily air temperatures is available for Sao Paulo, Brazil. The air temperature estimates are validated with measurements from a WMO station, an Urban Flux Network site, and data from seven citizen weather stations. Daily temperature estimates are good (coefficient of determination ρ2 of 86%), and the study shows they improve by opt...

Crowdsourcing urban air temperatures through smartphone battery temperatures in São Paulo, Brazil

Governments and companies have set high targets in avoiding CO2 emissions and reducing energy. Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) systems can contribute by overcoming the temporal mismatch between the availability of sustainable heat (during summer) and the demand for heat (during winter). Therefore, ATES is an increasingly popular technique; currently over 3000 low temperature ATES systems are operational in the Netherlands. Low-temperature ATES systems use heat pumps to allow the stored heat to be supplied at the required temperature for heating (usually around 40-50°C) and for cooling in summer. Although on average a conventional low-temperature ATES system produces 3-4 times lower CO2 emissions when compared to gas heating, the heat pumps still require substantial amounts of external electricity, causing over 60% of the remaining primary energy use. In the ATES triplet system, the temperatures in the hot and cold wells of an ATES system are increased and decreased respectively to match the required delivery temperatures and a third well is added at an intermediate temperature. With this strategy, other sources of sustainable heat and cooling capacity can supply the subsurface close to the temperatures required in the hot and the cold well. However, the return temperatures from the building systems do not conform with either of the hot or cold wells and an additional well is used to store water at the return temperature. Additional components are then required to supply the hot and cold wells (from the third well) by increasing the temperature in summer (e.g. solar collectors) and decreasing it in winter (e.g. dry coolers). In this study the feasibility of this concept is evaluated. Simulations and an economical evaluation show significant potential for triplet ATES with economic performance better than conventional ATES while the CO2 emissions are reduced by a factor of ten. As the temperature differences are larger, the volume of groundwater required to be pumped is considerably lowered, causing an additional energy saving. Ongoing research focusses on analysing the energy balance and energy loss in the subsurface, well design requirements, working/operational conditions of each well, as well as the integration of building system components, such as the influence of weather conditions on performance of system components.

Novel ATES triplet system for autarkic space heating and cooling

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Crowdsourcing urban air temperatures through smartphone battery temperatures in São Paulo, Brazil

Novel ATES triplet system for autarkic space heating and cooling