Partners and International Organizations
(English)
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AT, BE, BG, CZ, DK, FI, FR, DE, EL, HU, IE, IT, LT, NO, PL, PT, ES, CH, UK
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Abstract
(English)
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Urban air pollution is one of the environmental problems of major concern and will, due to growing urbanization, probably become more and more important in the future. Air pollution standards are very often exceeded in urban areas or the exceeding is stronger there than at rural sites. The definition and evaluation of abatement strategies usually require predictions of pollutant concentrations to be made in advance and hence heavily rely on air pollution modeling. So much that air pollution is a typically urban problem, so little is known concerning the flow and dispersion characteristics over urban surfaces. The present project within COST 715 ('Meteorology Applied to Urban air Pollution Problems') aims at filling in this gap by providing a high-quality and long-time data set in order to establish and/or test boundary layer parameterizations to be used in urban dispersion models. In particular, this research focuses on the urban energy balance, the near-surface turbulence structure and the profiles of flow and turbulence variables throughout the urban boundary layer. The project relies on a year-long observational network in the City of Basel - hence its acronym BUBBLE (Basle UrBan Boundary Layer Experiment). At several sites over different surface types (urban, sub-urban and rural reference) towers up to at least twice the main obstacle height provide turbulence observations at many levels. In addition, a Wind Profiler and a Lidar near the city center are profiling the entire lower troposphere. In parallel, a meso-scale numerical atmospheric model, which contains a surface exchange parameterization especially designed for urban areas is being evaluated and further developed. The project has attracted a number of external partners from all over the world who contributed to the experimental and modeling efforts during BUBBLE. During an intensive observation period several sub-studies on street canyon energetics and satellite ground truth as well as on urban turbulence and profiling were performed. Also a tracer experiment was successfully performed to establish the link to COST715. Finally a scale model of the City of Basel is presently being investigated in a wind tunnel.
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