Project description
Innovative device for microclimate measurements
The damage and subsequent financial and ecological impacts resulting from climate change have prompted increased efforts to monitor and assess climate conditions and temperatures. However, official weather stations tend to focus more on larger-scale climate systems, ignoring the importance of microclimates. Funded by the European Research Council, the MIRRA project aims to develop an innovative instrument for efficient, instantaneous, long-term, and remote microclimate measurements. This device will also enable the efficient transfer of data through cellular connectivity, providing real-time open access to users worldwide. This advancement will improve decision-making for policymakers concerning critical microclimates.
Objective
Climate change, and its impacts on ecological, agricultural, and other societal systems, is often studied by relying on temperature data derived from official weather stations. Yet, these data do not capture microclimates, influenced by vegetation, soil and topography, operating at spatial scales relevant to the majority of organisms on Earth. Detecting and attributing climate-change impacts with confidence and certainty will only be possible if we better quantify how temperatures are changing in forests, mountains, shrublands, and other remote habitats. Policy makers and land managers urgently need open access to more microclimate data.
Here, we develop an open access, integrative Microclimate Real-time Remote Applications (MIRRA) instrument with an associated authoritative, online database to solve this problem. There is an urgent need for a novel, miniature and simple self-assembly open access device with free online data access.
The overarching aim of MIRRA is to develop a miniature and simple self-assembly instrument for instantaneous, long-term and remote measurements of microclimate with optimized power usage and data transfer via cellular connectivity. All data become automatically available to everybody online, and MIRRA will thus substantially increase the availability of open access real-time microclimate data from all over the world. As a proof-of-concept showcase, and building on ERC StG FORMICA, we will install the MIRRA system in 45 forests spread across Europe.
With the dawn of such novel sensor technology for the long-term, low-cost, real-time and remote sensing of microclimates, we lay the foundation and open a wide range of possibilities to map microclimates in different ecosystems, feeding a next generation of models. This system will serve a multitude of societal needs, now and into the future as climate change accelerates.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringremote sensing
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiodiversity conservation
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept GrantsHost institution
9000 Gent
Belgium