NEXT GENERATION CITY CLIMATE SERVICES USING ADVANCED WEATHER MODELS AND EMERGING DATA SOURCES

Project Information

CityCLIM

Grant agreement ID: 101036814

DOI

10.3030/101036814

Project closed

EC signature date 22 September 2021

Start date 1 October 2021

End date 30 September 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 4 997 790,00

EU contribution

€ 4 997 790,00

Coordinated by

OHB SYSTEM AG
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CityCLIM (NEXT GENERATION CITY CLIMATE SERVICES USING ADVANCED WEATHER MODELS AND EMERGING DATA SOURCES)

Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Europe's metropolitan areas are increasingly suffering from the effects of climate change. As a result of climate change, heat waves are occurring with increasing frequency and pose a threat to the well-being and health of the population. To counter this threat, it is important to understand its causes and identify suitable countermeasures in good time. Especially densely populated areas are strongly affected by high temperatures, as the heat usually lasts longer and temperatures hardly drop even at night. For this reason, the health burden caused by heat is significantly higher in cities than in surrounding areas. This is why the CityCLIM project developed a weather forecast model tailored to the needs of large cities. Unlike conventional forecast models, whose resolution is usually in the range of several kilometres, the new process-based model has a resolution of one hundred by one hundred meters, and is therefore better suited for small-scale application. In addition, the model combines data from weather satellites with measurements of the air and information collected on the ground. Data sources to be integrated include existing services of the European Earth Observation Programme Copernicus and information provided by the population itself.
The calculations made with the improved model have been made available to the general public in the form of various weather and climate services (see https://www.cityclim.eu/city-climate-services). Further services have also been developed specifically for city councils and other authorities. These should make it possible, among other things, to examine the effect of urban planning measures in order to, for instance, mitigate climate change. In this context, for example, the analysis of the impact of green spaces and water bodies on the urban climate is considered.
The project has developed a cloud-based platform that provides various weather and climate services specifically for metropolitan areas based on data from weather models, earth observation and ground measurements (https://cityclimservicesshowcases.cityclim.eu/#/map/identification-service). To meet these challenges, CityCLIM has been driven by 4 Pilots covering different climate regions in Europe (Luxembourg, Thessaloniki, Valencia, Karlsruhe, see https://www.cityclim.eu/about) which have defined the requirements for the tools developed, supported the specification and testing of the services and served as demonstrators of the selected approaches and technologies developed.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the second half of the project, the following work was carried out to achieve the technical objectives:
• Elaboration of the CityCLIM Framework with four tailored manuals consisting information and guidelines for various target groups of CityCLIM.
• Implementation and optimisation of full prototypes for Advanced Urban Weather Model, Data Processors, Citizens Science Concepts for Urban Climate Monitoring, Citizen Climate Services, Administration Climate Services and GCCP.
• Integration of prototypes and data sources into the GCCP building the CityCLIM ecosystem.
• Finalising the set-up of pilot infrastructure with subsequent integration and customisation of prototypes.
• Validation, testing and demonstration of the integrated services, platform and framework with 4 Pilots in 4 cities in Europe and measure the results through key performance indicators (KPIs) defined with users and stakeholders.
• Dissemination and communication of project outcomes to diverse audiences, aiming at creating a community of different stakeholders relevant for CCS, with special focus upon Citizen awareness raising activities linked to Climate change to facilitate social innovation, promote education and training for sustainability and effective adaptation to climate changes.
• Elaboration of a business plan that ensures long-term deployment and profitability of Services and Platform, assuring multiplication of the results through scaling up and replication to a number of players in the business and public sector.
• Elaboration of a roadmap for future development of CCS, focusing at the definition of further data that need to be acquired via satellites and other sources in order to allow for effective building of such services addressing climate changes.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

CityCLIM directly contributes to the impacts set in the work programme under the challenge project LC-GD-9-2-2020: Developing end-user products and services for all stakeholders and citizens supporting climate adaptation, as it deliver both the sets of next-generation of climate services and set of tools to build such services, addressing the downstream part of the value chain, providing actionable information to non-specialists for adapting to extreme climate events and new climatic conditions through tools, platforms (e.g. GEOSS & Copernicus) and/or mobile applications.
The project's key innovations are:
(i) an open platform for the efficient development of services based on access to diverse data (see https://www.cityclim.eu/gccp);
(ii) improved weather models based on data from various existing and emerging sources (see https://www.cityclim.eu/ultra-hd-weater-model);
(iii) a set of City Climate Services that can be adapted to the specific needs of users in cities (see https://www.cityclim.eu/city-climate-services); and
(iv) a generic framework for building the next generation of City Climate Services (see https://www.cityclim.eu/info-material).
Based on the underlying impact assessment the CityCLIM project has demonstrated substantial advancements in the field of climate adaptation and mitigation solutions. Moreover, CityCLIM has formed a foundation for future climate services through the design of the Generic City Climate Platform. The expected objectives and results have been met and partly exceeded, which underlines further the impact of the CityCLIM project on society after the project duration.

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