We are happy to receive students in our offices and give them insights into our day-to-day work and into the different projects on which we are working
e.g. by joining us for an internship, or by writing Bachelor's or Master's thesis about subjects such as model verification or urban climate and other subjects.
The results of these cooperations benefits all participants: Students gain experience, new research results are generated for the research community, and also help us to develop new products, improve processes, and better serve our customers.
Some of the results from our scientific cooperation are described below.
Urban Heat Island mitigation strategies
In collaboration with the University of Oldenburg, the effect of Urban Heat Island (UHI) mitigation strategies was analysed. The urban heat island effect is a typical phenomenon of the climate of a city. It is characterised by an air temperature difference between the heat-exposed city centre and the cooler rural areas.
In this study, the dense temperature measurement network in Basel recorded temperatures before and after construction (2020 vs. 2021), during which a paved area was greened (Triangle Park). The graph shows the difference between quarter-hourly averaged temperature measurements, whereas the red line shows the temperatures before the construction work and the blue line afterwards. In summary, we measured an average cooling effect of 0.27 K.
Development of a small-scale city climate model
This project was conducted with the
University of Freiburg (Germany).
The small-scale city model uses measurement data from weather stations as input.
Those measurements are shown on our
city climate website.
The study analyses the required number of weather stations in urban areas to
guarantee a high accuracy of the model. The study results are summarized in the graph showing the station
number and the mean absolute error (MAE) of the model. The MAE describes the average of all hourly deviations of the model relative to the measurement in absolute terms. MAE is reduced to almost 0.8°C by adding more stations to the model. This makes the model almost as good as nearby measurements. However, the improvement levels off, beyond 50 stations in an already existing dense station network, so "perfect" calculations for a location with MAE below 0.8°C can only be achieved with additional local stations. The results of this study help to increase the efficiency of deploying urban climate monitoring networks by only installing the necessary number of stations, saving time and resources.
Verification studies for different weather variables
A further focus was put on numerical model validations. For the evaluation of the forecast data accuracy, measured data are compared to forecast data by applying statistical analysis. The results of those studies are documented on our verification pages.
We will continue working on scientific projects to improve our services and develop new ones. Updates can be found on our cooperation page.
