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A. Maleki, K. Orehounig, K. Kiesel, A. Mahdavi:
"Monitoring and Modeling of the urban Micro-Climate";
Talk: EURA Conference 2012 - Urban Europe - Challenges to meet the urban future, Wien; 2012-09-20 - 2012-09-22; in: "EURA Conference 2012 - Urban Europe - Challenges to meet the urban future", J. Dangschat et al. (ed.); Vienna University of Technology / wissenschaftliches Eigeneditoral, 1 (2012), Paper ID 226, 12 pages.

Increasing urbanization and its effect on the micro-climate has been the subject of research for quite some time. Micro-climatic conditions of urban settings can display a considerable variance, due to differences in morphology and density of urban spaces as well as the thermal and radiative properties of surfaces. The micro climatic differences and its effect on the energy demand for heating and cooling represents a challenge for careful and proper building design and operation. Since micro-climatic data are typically available only for few locations, planning, retrofit, and mitigation measures for buildings cannot count on reliable micro climatic weather information for the exact locations of intended building projects. In this context, this paper presents the results of an ongoing research project, which is concerned with an efficient approach to dynamic monitoring of micro-climatic conditions in various - morphologically distinct - locations around the city of Vienna. The main purpose of the study is to develop a deeper understanding of those urban design and planning parameters that lead to the aforementioned variance in micro-climatic conditions in large and densely populated cities such as Vienna.
To collect required micro-climatic data, a mobile weather station was designed and constructed. Using this instrument, pedestrian-level data was gathered from a number of locations in the center of Vienna. Monitored data was structured in terms of a high-resolution database. Collected data was compared with the simultaneously monitored weather conditions of a stationary weather station. Thus, patterns of variance in multiple locations could be analyzed in view of the pertinent characteristics of the selected urban locations. Additionally, the potential for the development and validation of high-resolution climatic boundary condition models for building design and operation support was explored. For this purpose, a simulation model of a number of locations was generated using a microclimate simulation tool. The results showed a relatively good agreement with measurements for some locations.

Project Head Ardeshir Mahdavi:
Monitoring and modeling of the urban micro-climate