URBAN CLIMATE SUMMER SCHOOL

ICUB
UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
September 2-6, 2019
BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

About

Organizers : Research Institute of University of Bucharest (ICUB), Ghent University (Belgium), University of Bochum (Germany), Romanian Association for Applied Meteorology and Education (Romania)

Rationale and goals: Cities nowadays provide facilities and services, business opportunities and cultural attractions of unprecedented complexity, triggering more than a half of the world population to strive for comfort and safety. The scientific community, local authorities, stakeholders and public show high and constant interest for monitoring and evaluating the environmental impact of the metropolitan regions, in order to better use the current resources and prepare for future challenges. Cities are vital in the response to climate change and urban population increase. Urban-induced effects and impacts owing to long-lived emissions of greenhouse gases trigger physical and socio-economic consequences that affect the livelihoods of urban dwellers. Such challenges call for enduring scientific advancements, improved training and increased awareness of topical issues.

The Bucharest Urban Climate Summer School 2019 (BUCSS 2019) aims to provide structured information and skill-building capabilities related to urban climate monitoring and modelling, urban ecology and biometeorology, with a primary focus of creating an active pool of young scientists that tackle the major urban sustainability challenges facing future generations.

The critical areas to be covered by BUCSS 2019 refer to
(1) Modelling tools used in urban meteorology and climatology

(2) Urban ecology as an instrument for adaptation to climate change challenges in cities

(3) Exploring critical linkages among environmental factors and emerging and chronic health threats and health disparities

Those attending can expect to gain an understanding of the state-of-the-art via lectures and hands-on experience on (1) urban climate modelling, (2) urban ecology, and (2) biometeorology.

The summer school is primarily intended for doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers who already have basic knowledge and interest for urban climate issues. Basic skills in climate studies, climate modelling, programming and statistics is required.

You may apply to attend BUCSS 2019 by e-mailing to the address svmp@icub.unibuc.ro the following: a) 2-page CV; b) 1-page letter of motivation; c) names, affiliation, e-mails and phone numbers of two professors or senior researchers who could provide references.

Venue

Instructors

Benjamin Bechtel, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

Benjamin Bechtel holds a professorship in Urban Climatology at the Department of Geography, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. Before he was Research Associate with the Cluster of Excellence CliSAP, University of Hamburg. His research interests include crowd sourcing and urban remote sensing, in particular the characterization of urban surfaces and thermal remote sensing for applications in urban climatology. Dr. Bechtel received the dissertation award 2013 for physical geography of the Verband der Geographen an Deutschen Hochschulen (VGDH) for his Ph.D. thesis on “Remote sensing of urban canopy parameters for enhanced modelling and climate related classification of urban structures”; his habilitation was on “Advancements in urban- and topoclimatic observations and modelling – Remote Sensing, Crowd-Sourcing and Data Fusion”. He serves as board member of the International Association for Urban Climate, as a steering committee member of the Belgian research project REACT and the GEO Global Human Settlement Working Group, and as a reviewer and guest editor for several international journals.

Ashley Broadbent, Arizona State University (USA)

Ashley Broadbent is Assistant Research Professor, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University (ASU).Broadbent’s research focuses on understanding the environmental impacts of urbanization and land cover change. His research utilizes measurements and modeling of land-atmosphere exchanges and thermal environments across a range of scales. Broadbent’s doctoral research (Monash University, Australia) was completed in 2016 as part of a Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, which works closely with government and private sector collaborators to achieve urban sustainability outcomes. He is currently based in the Urban Climate Research Centre at ASU and is funded by the National Science Foundation. He is particularly interested in heat mitigation and uses tools such as the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model to evaluate novel urban cooling strategies.

Jürgen H. Breuste, Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg (Austria)

Jürgen Breuste held a professorship for Geography/Urban Ecology at Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg (Austria) (born 1956). He studied geography at Martin-Luther University Halle/Wittenberg from where he got his PhD 1982 and his second graduation 1986. He was university lecturer for geography, geo-ecology and urban ecology at the German universities in Halle, Greifswald, Dresden and Leipzig and headed of department Urban Landscape at the Environmental Research Centre Leipzig/Halle for 10 years before his actual position in 2001. There he is Honorary Professor of Capital Normal University Beijing, China, full professor for urban ecology of East China Normal University Shanghai, and member of several scientific boards and president of the International Society of Urban Ecology (SURE). He has worked as project leader in a number of research projects on urban ecology and urban development at EU level and in other international cooperation. He is specified in urban ecosystem research, nature protection and modelling of urban development by numerous publications.

Sorin Cheval, University of Bucharest / National Meteorological Administration / “Henri Coandă” Air Force Academy (Romania)

Sorin Cheval is a senior climatologist, Full Professor at “Henri Coandă” Air Force Academy from Brașov (Romania), and Associate Research Scientist at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography and he is a Fulbright Alumnus at the University of South Carolina (USA). His habilitation thesis (2015) focused on urban climate and climate change. Dr. Sorin Cheval is a senior researcher at National Meteorological Administration. Since 2014, Sorin Cheval convenes the Urban Climate and Biometeorology section of the European Geophysical Union, and his main expertise related to urban climate refers to monitoring techniques, assessment of urban heat island, and climate change impacts. Some results of his research on the urban heat island may be found at http://uclimesa.meteoromania.ro/

Matthias Demuzere, University of Ghent (Belgium)

Dr. Matthias Demuzere currently works as senior scientist at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany). He obtained his PhD in Science at Leuven University, on the topic of synoptic-scale climatology and air quality. Afterwards he completed a six year FWO post-doctoral position at the same university, followed by a two years post-doctoral position at Ghent University, working on global climate – vegetation interactions. During these positions he’s been working abroad on various occasions, amongst others including long-term research stays at the National University of Singapore, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and the MPI for biogeochemistry in Jena (Germany). The topics covered circle around the land-atmosphere interface: synoptic circulation patterns and their role in the climate and air quality, the role of water sensitive urban design (CRC for Water Sensitive Cities), urban climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, modelling urban surfaces and their atmosphere interactions, high resolution convection permitting models and wind energy production yields in a changing climate. Ongoing projects dea mapping Local Climate Zones (WUDAPT), pollution and human health in a Chinese megacity Programme, climate extremes in the lake Victoria Basin and remote sensing for malaria epidemiology in African cities. Since 2015 he is leading the bibliography committee of the International Association for Urban Climate (IAUC). As of 2019 he is also elected as a board member of the same association. Since October 2018 he started his company “Kode”, with which he, amongst other, acts as a freelance climatologist for Cloud to Street, a global remote sensing platform that delivers support to flood vulnerable communities that do not have access to traditional flood information. A full overview of his CV can be found here.

Andreas Matzarakis, German Meteorological Service, Freiburg (Germany)

Prof. Dr. Andreas Matzarakis is leading since August 2015 the Research Center Human Biometeorology of the German Meteorological Service in Freiburg. Appointed as extraordinary Professor at the University of Freiburg since October 2006. He was born at Pentalofos/Evros, Greece in 1960. He received a degree in Meteorology in 1989 from the Physics Department, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in 1989 and a Ph.D. degree in Meteorology and Climatology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. From 1995 to 2001 he was a scientific assistant at meteorological Institute of the Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg and earned his habilitation about the “thermal component of the urban climate” in 2001. He is appointed to Professor at the University of Freiburg in October 2006. His research is mainly focused on urban climatology, human-biometeorology, tourism climatology, regional climatology, forest meteorology and climate impact research. He is founder and editor of the urban climate website. Since 1996 he chairs the commission on climate, tourism and recreation of the International Society of Biometeorology. He was vice-president of the International Society of Biometeorology (2008-2011). He is the developer of several models and tools in applied climatology and biometeorology i.e. RayMan Model, SkyHelios Model, Climate Mapping Tool and CTIS (Climate-Tourism/Transfer-Information-Scheme).

Andre Nouri, University of Lisbon (Portugal)

Andre Nouri is an Urban Designer with an architectural background who specialises in the examination and improvement of urban local human thermal comfort thresholds. Such a research focus is centred upon the pursuit of improving/maturing in-situ interdisciplinary bottom-up adaptation approaches that can address both: (1) existing human biometeorological risk factors; and in addition, (2) those to be expected as a result of potential climate change impacts exacerbating these identified human thermo-physiological conditions. After working in the UK within the private and public sector, he obtained his PhD in Urbanism, at the Faculty of Architecture within the University of Lisbon, and is currently an associated Collaborative Researcher for the Research Centre for Architecture, Urbanism, and Design (CIAUD) at FAUL. In addition, he is a collaborator of numerous international research groups, and has thus far published in numerous journals that cover a wide range of disciplines. He correspondingly has international teaching experience in different institutions, including within the NICAI centre at the University of Auckland – New Zealand where his teaching concentrated upon the role of various analytical scales (from local to regional) within both architecture and urban design disciplines to approach environmental issues – including urban climatology, and the impacts associated to projected climate change scenarios by the end of the century.

Oded Potchter, Tel Aviv University (Israel)

Prof. Oded Potchter is Vice Dean and Chair of The Academic Council of the Faculty of Society and Culture at the Beit Berl College and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University. His area of expertise is Applied Climatology focusing on bio-climatology, urban climatology, climate related planning, green buildings and the urban heat island phenomenon with in desert cities. His PhD thesis was on the Climatic Aspects of the Building of Ancient Urban Settlements in the Land of Israel. In recent years, his research has focused on the environmental impact (climate, air pollution and noise) of urban habitants as well as the impact of green spaces on urban climate. In terms of teaching, he specializes in field studies, climatic measurements and environmental monitoring. Prof. Potchter is a climatic consultant and was involved in the planning process of the desert city of Beer Sheva and the new city of Ramat Beit Shemesh as well as other smaller scale projects.

Hendrik Wouters, (Belgium)

Dr. Hendrik Wouters is a climate scientist with a specific interest in the relation between urbanization, climate change and weather extremes. He has obtained his PhD at KU Leuven on urban climatology in 2014. He is the main developer of the TERRA_URB urban land-surface scheme to represent urban land cover in the COSMO atmospheric model. He is a co-chair of the EGU urban-climate session since 2014, and has contributed to several research and governmental projects on high-resolution climate downscaling (MACCBET, CORDEX.be) and climate adaptation (DKA). He was the leading force behind the future urban heat-stress scenarios for Belgium published as one of the key outcomes in the Climate Report of the Flanders Environment Agency. Since 2 years has been working as a postdoc at the laboratory of hydrology and water management of UGhent on the ‘DRY–2–DRY project to investigate the propagation and amplification of droughts (http://www.dry2dry.org). He has developed the software CLASS4GL (http://class4gl.eu) to investigate the controls and impacts of the atmospheric boundary layer on the basis of weather balloons worldwide.

Important dates

Application deadline: 27 June 2019
Approval of application: 1 July 2019
Urban Climate Summer School: 2 – 6 September 2019

Participants

To be announced.

Schedule

Monday, September 2

9:00 – Welcome and opening

9:15 – General introduction to urban climate (Sorin Cheval)

10:00 – Student introduction

12:00 – Introduction to urban climate modelling (Ashley Broadbent, Hendrik Wouters)

13:00 – Lunch break

14:00 – Urban climate modelling using WRF (Ashley Broadbent, Hendrik Wouters)

15:30 – Crowdsourced data in urban climate applications (Matthias Demuzere)

Wednesday, September 4

9:00 – Introduction to urban ecology (Juergen Breuste)

10:00 – Hands-on urban ecology (Juergen Breuste, Cristian Iojă)

13:00 – Lunch break

14:00 – Basics of thermal comfort and factors influencing urban bioclimate (Andreas Matzarakis)

15:30 – Field trip and social event: Bucharest

Friday, September 6

9:00 – Experimental studies in urban bioclimate and thermal perception questionnaires (Oded Pochter)

10:30 – To be announced

13:00 – Lunch break

14:00 – To be announced

16:00 – Ending ceremony

Tuesday, September 3

9:00 – Manipulating earth observation data with Google Earth Engine (Matthias Demuzere)

10:00 – Urban climate modelling using WRF (Ashley Broadbent, Hendrik Wouters)

12:00 – Introduction in remote sensing in urban areas (Benjamin Bechtel)

13:00 – Lunch break

14:00 – Remote sensing in urban areas (Benjamin Bechtel)

Thursday, September 5

9:00 – Experimental studies in urban bioclimate and thermal perception (Oded Pochter)

10:30 – Introduction to urban bioclimate models (RayMan, SkyHelios) (Andreas Matzarakis)

13:00 – Lunch break

14:00 – How to explore urban bio-climate with individual measurements and experiences (Andreas Matzarakis, Oded Pochter, Andre Nouri)

Committees

Scientific committee

Sorin Cheval (ICUB)
Andreas Matzarakis (DWD)
Matthias Demuzere (UBochum)

Organising committee

Sorin Cheval (ICUB)
Oana Peiu (ICUB)
Matthias Demuzere (UBochum)

Registration

Send to the address svmp@icub.unibuc.ro: a) 2-page CV; b) 1-page letter of motivation; c) the name, affiliation, e-mail address and phone numbers of two professors/scholars who could provide references about the candidate

Deadline: 27 June 2019
Fee: Euro 200 upon acceptance of participation. The fee covers all the coffee breaks and lunches, the official dinner and excursions. Details about the payment procedure will be sent to the participants.
Registration will soon be open for accepted participants. Deadline for fee payment 31 July 2018.

Travel&Accommodation

The summer school will take place in Bucharest, within the premises of University of Bucharest.

The organizers do not cover the travel and accomodation cost for participants.

More information on accommodation will be provided to the participants upon selection for the event.

Transportation. There are non-stop flights to Bucharest from most major European cities and in the Middle-East and connecting flights from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Most international flights arrive at Henri Coanda (Otopeni) Airport. Airport facilities include ATM, currency exchange office, Taxi Desk and car rental. The airport is connected with the city center by official taxis and express buses. Bucharest’s main train station – Gara de Nord – is a major rail centre with daily connections from/to cities throughout Europe and main cities in Romania. There are daily trains from/to Athens, Belgrade, Budapest, Istanbul, Kiev, Moscow, Prague, Sofia, and Vienna. Trains from/to Western European cities run via Budapest. Bucharest’s public transportation network includes: bus (“autobuz”), tram (“tramvai”), trolley bus (“troilebuz|), subway (“metrou”) and taxi. Read more

Accommodation. Bucharest has a full range of accommodation facilities, at different rates and standards. We will provide our recommendation to the selected participants, at about 20-40 Euro/night.

Visas. Citizens of virtually all European countries, as well as Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and the USA, do not require visas to visit Romania for short-stays (up to 90 days). For citizens from other countries, visas are issued at Romanian consulates. The bearers of a visa with 2 or multiple entries, a long-term visa or a residence permit issued by Schengen Member States shall no longer be required to hold a short-stay visa. If you need an official invitation to get the visa, please contact the organisers well in advance.Read more

Venue

Contact

email: svmp@icub.unibuc.ro

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