Welcome
We are a research network who study the physics of the urban micro-climate: Helsinki's lower atmosphere (the Atmospheric Boundary Layer).
We are a collaboration primarily between the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the University of Helsinki.
Our key tools are instrumentation that observe the atmosphere (eddy-covariance flux stations, lidar, sodar, ceilometers, scintillometers, infra-red cameras).
The purpose of the network is to provide data about atmospheric boundary-layer (ABL)
dynamics: including ABL depth, vertical profiles of mean and turbulence variables, about the surface-atmosphere exchange of energy and gases (e.g. carbon dioxide and water vapour).
Helsinki UrBAN will provide better experimental data for development and evaluation of numerical weather prediction (NWP) and air quality (AQ) models;
and eventually data could also be used operationally in future (e.g. for NWP / data assimilation / AQ models).
News
- September 2017: paper accepted on meteorological pre-processor (Backman et al.)
- January 2016: Data archive availability table and plots
- October 2015: Two visiting students arrive (Daan Koop for 4 months and He Zhang for 6 months).
- June 2015: New scientific paper in Urban Climate, on airborne-laser-derived land classification and the effect on urban weather prediction; and reference in the Guardian newspaper.
- April 2015: New scientific paper in AMT, on winds over Helsinki with lidar and scintillometer.
- March 2015: Wireless sensor network trial begins in Helsinki.
- March 2015: FMI hosts a Working Group of the COST TOPROF network.
- February 2015: Ceilometer seminar (Christoph Muenkel of Vaisala): slides.
- January 2015: Workshop and kick-off meeting of Nessling project (John Backmann as grantee).
- July 2014: Field campaign in a Helsinki street canyon, with the University of Salento (in addition to University of Helsinki and Finnish
Meteorological Institute).
- July 2014: Scintillometer-lidar wind paper now in Discussions
- June 2014: Summer intern (Roland Theiss) starts 3-month position looking at ABL depth from lidar
- May 2014: Presentations at AMS conference "Boundary Layers and Turbulence"
- January 2014: Presentations at the ISARS conference, Auckland (New Zealand)
- November 2013: Metek Sodar-RASS installed in Helsinki
- November 2013: Funding won for a post-doc research scientist from Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation
- October 2013: Overview paper published
- September 2013: Presentations at the EMS conference, Reading UK
- August 2013: Scintillometry paper published
- June 2013: Summer intern (Peter Ukkonen) starts 3-month position
- May 2013: Third scintillometer installed over Helsinki
- 30 Nov 2012: Prof. Janet Barlow visits Helsinki
- September 2012: Article (Curtis Wood and Leena Järvi) - overview of urban climate observations in Helsinki (Magazine of the Finnish Air Pollution Prevention Society)
- 16 Aug 2012: Seminar (Rosa Gierens, summer intern) - scintillometry over Helsinki
- 06-10 Aug 2012: Helsinki UrBAN poster at ICUC (www.icuc8.org); plus other presentations from Helsinki UrBAN
- May 2012: Workshop with Prof. Sue Grimmond as keynote speaker
- Feb 2012: Founding workshop