by Andreas Christen - 'Urban Meteorology' focusses on the impact of urbanization upon atmospheric processes and climates. Cities significantly alter exchange processes at the land-atmosphere interface. We elaborate and quantify how meteorology and climate on different scales are affected by the presence of an urban surface (trace-gas exchange, urban heat island, precipitation modification, etc.). We explore methods to measure and model those urban land-atmosphere interactions. We discuss the significance of urban climate in applications such as architecture, urban planning and management, health, weather forecasting, dispersion modelling and global climate change.

Lectures and Exams
Date	Topic		Reading Packages
04-Jan-12	Introduction and course overview.
06-Jan-12	1 Urban ecosystems and sustainable cities?.
09-Jan-12	2 The urban surface.
11-Jan-12	3 The concept of the 'urban atmosphere'.
13-Jan-12	4 Urban complexity and experimental control.
16-Jan-12	Research project preparation.
18-Jan-12	5 Radiation in the urban atmosphere.
20-Jan-11	6 Short-wave radiation and the urban surface. Deadline for choosing article (literature critique assignment).
23-Jan-12	7 Long-wave radiation and the urban surface.
25-Jan-12	8 Urban net all-wave radiation and snow effects.
27-Jan-12	9 Heat storage in urban structures.
30-Jan-12	10 Anthropogenic heat. Deadline for submission literature critique assignment.
01-Jan-12	11 Convective fluxes and the urban energy balance.
03-Jan-12	12 The surface urban heat island.
06-Feb-12	13 The canopy layer and boundary layer urban heat islands.
08-Feb-12	14 Urban heat island genesis and controls.
10-Feb-12	Midterm Examination I (FAQ, Exam Questions, Answer Key, Statistics).
13-Feb-12	15 Car traverse exercise preparation.
15-Feb-12	16 Flow around buildings.
17-Feb-12	17 Flow and urban roughness.
	Midterm Break
27-Feb-12	18 Urban wind profile.
29-Feb-12	19 Turbulence and dispersion.
02-Mar-12	20 Urban dispersion modelling.
05-Mar-12	21 Flow in the urban outer layer.
07-Mar-12	22 The water balance of cities.
09-Mar-12	23 Urban effects on humidity and dew.
12-Mar-12	24 Urban effects on precipitation.
14-Mar-12	25 Weather and climate monitoring in cities.
16-Mar-12	26 Weather forecasting in cities.
19-Mar-12	27 Measuring greenhouse gas emissions from cities.
21-Mar-12	28 Modelling greenhouse gas emissions from cities.
23-Mar-12	Midterm Examimation II (FAQ)
26-Mar-12	29 Climate sensitive urban design and planning. Deadline for car traverse report.
28-Mar-12	P1 Group project presentations. Instructions for research projects
30-Mar-12	P2 Group project presentations.
02-Apr-12	P3 Group project presentations.
04-Apr-12	P4 Group project presentations.

Note, there is no final exam in this course. All dates and topics might be still subject to change.

Photo: Flux measurements above an urban surface using the eddy covariance method (BUBBLE, 2001/02).
 

Course Information

Lecture

Term 2 2011/12

Mon Wed Fri 12:00 to 12:50
Geography Room 201

Course prerequisites

The course is scientific in approach. You must have one of those prerequisite courses: GEOG / GEOB 204 or AGRO / APBI 244 or GEOG / GEOB 300).

Course evaluation

Please be sure to know the rules for exams, assignments and group projects. Marks for the course will be allocated as follows:

Glossary

Online glossary of terms.

Your data sets

Data from your car traverses.

Instructor

Andreas Christen
Department of Geography
132 - 1984 West Mall andreas.christen@ubc.ca
604-822-6620

Office hours (Jan 4 to Apr 5, 2012)
Mon, 13:00 - 13:50
Fri, 11:00 - 11:50