Data portal · Topic
Urban boundary layer datasets: wind, turbulence and fluxes
Data on the turbulent atmospheric boundary layer over cities, from the roughness sublayer inside the street canopy up to the top of the mixed layer: wind and turbulence profiles from Doppler lidar, tall towers and sonic anemometers, eddy-covariance fluxes, boundary-layer height, and large-eddy and direct numerical simulations of flow over urban-like roughness.
- 101 resources
- 61 field
- 5 lab
- 34 simulation
- 1 tools & geometry
- 5 benchmarks
All 101 resources, largest first
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Large-eddy simulations of turbulent airflow over 314 realistic urban neighbourhoods from 62 cities in 20 countries, with plan-area densities from 0.05 to 0.75 and several wind directions. Provides canopy-averaged statistics and flow fields, which are useful for canopy parameterisation, model validation and machine learning of urban wind.
Simulation Simulation outputGeometry LES
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UrbanTALES: idealised building blocks
224 cases224 large-eddy simulations of flow over idealised building-block arrays. They systematically vary plan-area density (8 values, 0.0625 to 0.64), aligned and staggered layouts, 7 building-height distributions, and perpendicular or oblique wind. A parameter sweep for canopy parameterisation and model validation.
Simulation Simulation outputGeometry LES
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Harmonised data from a street-level network of 42 automatic weather stations in Freiburg for 2022. Useful for intra-urban temperature and wind variability.
Collection · 27 parts Field Measurements
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urbisphere Doppler wind lidar: Paris
11 partsRaw Doppler wind lidar measurements at the Paris-region site Arboretum Vallee-aux-Loups from the urbisphere campaign. Useful for urban boundary-layer wind and turbulence profiles.
Collection · 11 parts Field Measurements
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Turbulent inflow data of a rough atmospheric boundary layer for LES of Michelstadt, the semi-idealised Central European city model from the University of Hamburg wind-tunnel test cases (CEDVAL-LES), not the real town.
Simulation Simulation outputCase setup LES
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Raw Doppler wind lidar measurements at Berlin Rothenburgstrasse from the urbisphere campaign. Useful for urban boundary-layer wind and turbulence profiles.
Collection · 16 parts Field Measurements
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Modified source code, simulation directories and postprocessing for multi-layer SURFEX-TEB coupling with Meso-NH for urban climate of high-rise cities. Useful for mesoscale urban modelling.
Simulation Software & toolsSimulation output Mesoscale model
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LES output of an urban canopy and dense vegetated canopies over varying terrain complexity, for roughness-sublayer momentum statistics and TKE budgets.
Simulation Simulation output LES
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Data for diffusion-based sensor placement and reconstruction of turbulent flows in urban environments from DNS. Useful for ML reconstruction.
Simulation Simulation output DNSML / surrogate
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Archive of London micrometeorological measurements covering wind, temperature, humidity, radiation and concentration. Useful for urban boundary-layer and urban climate studies; see the project site for the full list.
Collection · 13 parts Field Measurements
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Time-resolved wind-tunnel velocity data built to validate LES: three approach boundary layers, flow and puff dispersion in a cube array, and the 1:225 idealised Central-European city Michelstadt with flat or slanted roofs.
Benchmark Lab Measurements Wind tunnel
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Météo-France/CNRM campaign from February 2004 to February 2005: a city-centre flux tower and surface stations, boundary-layer profilers and intensive periods on the urban heat island, the urban boundary layer and aerosols. Widely used to evaluate urban canopy schemes such as TEB.
Benchmark Field Measurements
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DTRA/DHS field study in July 2003: ten 8-hour intensive periods of SF6 releases in the central business district, sampled by 194 bag samplers and 25 fast-response analysers, with winds and turbulence measured at about 100 sites. A classic real-city dispersion benchmark.
Benchmark Field Measurements
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Basel Urban Boundary Layer Experiment, 2001–02: a year-long network of energy-balance towers across urban, suburban and rural sites, with a June–July 2002 intensive period adding a wind profiler, sodar/RASS, lidar, a street-canyon tower and four SF6 tracer releases. A reference for urban roughness-sublayer turbulence and energy balance.
Benchmark Field Measurements
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Classic multiscale urban dispersion campaign: SF6 and perfluorocarbon tracer releases with meteorology around a single building, across the downtown grid and over the wider city, mostly in stable night-time conditions. Files are openly downloadable by IOP.
Benchmark Field Measurements
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Distributed temperature sensing potential-temperature profiles along a 31 m mast in Helsinki, with turbulence temperature statistics. Useful for coastal urban surface-layer studies.
Field Measurements
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Continuous Doppler wind lidar measurements of the coastal urban boundary layer and adjacent marine layer.
Field Measurements
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3D ultrasonic anemometer data from the Beijing 325 m tower for urban boundary-layer turbulence.
Field Measurements
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Resulting data and source code for an inhomogeneous wind scheme for urban street canyons, validated against CFD. Useful for street-canyon pollutant dispersion parameterisation.
Collection · 5 parts Simulation Simulation outputSoftware & tools RANSAnalytical
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Raw simulation data and MATLAB scripts for a multi-scale analysis of flow over heterogeneous urban environments. Useful for urban boundary-layer and roughness research.
Simulation Simulation outputSoftware & tools LES
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Hourly 1 km WRF output over the Yangtze River Delta cities for a building-height change experiment, July 2020. Useful for urban morphology effects on weather.
Simulation Simulation output Mesoscale model
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Large (10 GB) dataset accompanying a study of multi-scale flow for scale-aware urban-canopy models; description is missing. Likely simulation output.
Simulation Simulation output LES
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Time-resolved non-isothermal turbulent inflow boundary data from LES of a stratified boundary layer, for OpenFOAM. Useful as inlet condition for building flow LES.
Simulation Simulation outputCase setup LES
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Dataset accompanying the GMD article on a conservative immersed boundary method for multi-physics urban LES. Useful for model validation and cases.
Simulation Software & toolsSimulation output LES
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Data accompanying the uDALES 1.0 GMD paper, an LES model for urban environments. Useful as validation and case setups.
Simulation Software & toolsSimulation outputCase setup LES
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Turbulence measurements from the MoTUS project in an urban setup.
Field Measurements
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One-minute radiation (direct, global, diffuse, longwave) and basic meteorological data from the Friedrichstadt rooftop station in Berlin during the urbisphere campaign. Useful for urban surface energy balance and model evaluation.
Collection · 4 parts Field Measurements
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Continuous scanning Doppler-lidar wind measurements of downslope winds over the city and Port of Genoa, December 2024 to March 2025. Useful for urban boundary-layer and wind-hazard studies.
Field Measurements
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Dataset of microscale atmospheric flow simulations around randomly generated urban geometries for several stability classes. Useful for training and testing ML surrogates of urban flow.
Simulation Simulation output RANSML / surrogate
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Configuration, code changes and scripts for WRF/Noah/SLUCM urban climate simulation of the Hong Kong-Shenzhen area. Useful as a mesoscale case setup.
Simulation Case setupSoftware & tools Mesoscale model
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Part I of wind-tunnel flow measurements in a 1:200 model of part of Southwark, London, examining tall buildings and height variability. Useful for validating urban flow models.
Collection · 2 parts Lab Measurements Wind tunnel
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PIV and LDV wind tunnel measurements of flow past a vegetated street canyon from TWEET-IE twin test 1. Useful for validating vegetation in urban flow models.
Collection · 2 parts Lab Measurements Wind tunnel
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Building-resolved LES wind fields for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong (U3DWind)
720 time-mean lattice-Boltzmann LES cases at 10 m resolution, 144 per city, spanning 16 wind directions, 3 reference speeds and 3 seasonal profiles, with 3D mean velocity and TKE plus building, terrain and footprint geometry. Very large (about 25 TB).
Simulation Simulation outputGeometry LES
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High-density urban air temperature (and meteorological) network across the Birmingham conurbation, for urban heat island studies.
Collection · 3 parts Field Measurements
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Energy spectra, kinetic energy time series and PALM input files for an urban flow modelling study.
Simulation Simulation outputCase setup LES
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Surface-atmosphere energy exchange data from eddy-covariance and scintillometer measurements in Enschede. Useful for urban flux model evaluation.
Collection · 2 parts Field MeasurementsSimulation output LES
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Naphthalene sublimation measurements in a wind tunnel street canyon model from Reading, giving scalar transfer in urban canyons.
Collection · 3 parts Field Measurements Wind tunnel
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Scanning Doppler lidar and sonic anemometer data used to observe tall-building wakes in London.
Field Measurements
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Raw microwave radiometer profile measurements of temperature and humidity at TU Berlin Charlottenburg campus, 2021-2022. Useful for urban boundary-layer thermodynamic structure.
Collection · 2 parts Field Measurements
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Processed outputs and Python scripts from PALM, WRF and Fluent simulations for an urban model comparison.
Simulation Simulation outputSoftware & tools LESRANSMesoscale model
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1 km gridded output from WRF v3.6.1 runs (apparently Birmingham BBUBL), for urban mesoscale meteorology.
Collection · 2 parts Simulation Simulation output Mesoscale model
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Gap-filled flux tower observations with site characteristics for Urban-PLUMBER, for evaluating urban land surface models.
Field Measurements
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Aircraft profiles of wind, temperature, turbulence, sensible heat flux and trace gases in the urban boundary layer over the West Midlands (PUMA).
Collection · 2 parts Field Measurements
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Time and space data from direct numerical simulations of turbulent flow over regular cuboid arrays (DIPLOS geometry). Useful for urban canopy turbulence studies.
Simulation Simulation output DNS
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Hourly temperature, humidity, pressure, irradiance, wind speed and direction from 40 automatic stations on the NUS campus during 2025. Useful for urban microclimate and model evaluation.
Field Measurements
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Processed LES output and Python post-processing scripts for hurricane boundary-layer turbulence over complex urban canopies using an immersed boundary method.
Simulation Simulation outputSoftware & tools LES
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uDALES is open-source LES software for urban flow, dispersion and microclimate.
Simulation Software & tools LES
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Half-hourly time series, fluxes, quadrant and wavelet results behind the figures of the paper, from the 325 m Beijing tower and the 102 m Xianghe tower, July 2017.
Field Measurements
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Hourly 2024 observations from 48 automatic weather stations across Shenzhen, including wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity and pressure. Useful for urban climate and wind analysis.
Field Measurements
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Hourly meteorological data from 17 weather stations in the Rome area. Useful for urban climate analysis and model evaluation.
Field Measurements
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Single-column WRF output and observations from the King's College London tower used to study urban boundary-layer processes. Useful for evaluating urban boundary-layer schemes.
Field Simulation outputMeasurements Mesoscale model
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Processed turbulence statistics and 10 Hz fluctuation records for four case studies from the 325 m Beijing tower and the 102 m Xianghe tower, July 2017.
Field Measurements
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Derived tables and scripts on wind turning with Paris wind and ERA5 boundary-layer height.
Field MeasurementsSoftware & tools
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Half-hourly observed and modelled turbulent fluxes at a Munich tall tower, 2024-2025, supporting CO2 emission estimates.
Field Measurements
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Surface meteorological data (wind, temperature) from Hangzhou 2013-2015 for studying interaction of mountain-plain wind with urban breeze.
Field Measurements
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Derived tables, figure assets and scripts for analysis of urban boundary-layer vertical decoupling.
Field MeasurementsSoftware & tools
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Code for diffusion-based sensor placement and reconstruction of turbulent flows in urban environments. Useful for flow reconstruction and sensor design.
Simulation Software & tools ML / surrogate
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Observed and simulated near-ground wind data from two model configurations over heterogeneous urban surfaces. Useful for evaluating urban wind models.
Simulation Simulation outputMeasurements Mesoscale model
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Data and scripts for a fast surrogate wind model over heterogeneous urban surfaces and terrain. Useful for rapid urban wind simulation.
Simulation Software & toolsSimulation output ML / surrogate
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Urban wind profile dataset from Doppler lidar in Tokyo.
Field Measurements
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Vertical profiles of urban wind speed, direction and turbulence measured by lidar on the UCC campus.
Field Measurements
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Observations from the 325 m Beijing tower on non-stationary turbulence over a megacity.
Field Measurements
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Fortran code of the Real Urban Roughness scheme, an aerodynamic parameterisation for real urban morphology. Useful for urban canopy models.
Tools & geometry Software & tools Analytical
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Data accompanying a study of embedded large-eddy simulation of the atmospheric boundary layer over an urban region using accelerated turbulence generation. Useful for LES inflow and urban boundary-layer modelling.
Simulation Simulation output LES
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One of the world's longest urban flux records (tower running since 2004, successor to the BUBBLE experiment): half-hourly CO2, heat and momentum fluxes, friction velocity and stability with footprints for 2015–2025.
Field Measurements
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Met Office UKV output for 109 days (2016-2018) used to evaluate urban sensible heat flux skill. Useful for urban NWP evaluation.
Simulation Simulation output Mesoscale model
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Raw radiosonde (windsond) profiles during the urbisphere Paris campaign. Useful for urban boundary-layer structure.
Field Measurements
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Long-running tall-tower eddy-covariance records of momentum, sensible and latent heat and CO2 over downtown and suburban Indianapolis, with raw 10 Hz data for turbulence statistics.
Field Measurements
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Eddy-covariance flux and meteorological observations from Swindon, 2011-2013, with SUEWS forcing files. Useful for urban surface energy balance model evaluation.
Field Measurements
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Year-long ARM Mobile Facility deployment with urban, rural and Chesapeake Bay nodes, measuring how the urban boundary layer differs from its surroundings through all seasons, including low-level jets and bay breezes. Doppler lidar, soundings, eddy covariance and profilers; free ARM account needed.
Field Measurements
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Example binary output from the UltraHD CityCLIM large-eddy simulation model. Useful for model output formats and urban LES.
Simulation Simulation output LES
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Source code of PALM 24.04 used in a study of PALM-SLUrb.
Simulation Software & tools LES
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LES velocity fields over urban canopies with inputs and U-net predicted fields, including perturbed cases. Useful for training and testing ML surrogates of urban flow.
Simulation Simulation output LESML / surrogate
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Eddy covariance measurements at Berlin-Mitte from the urbisphere campaign. Useful for urban turbulence and surface flux studies.
Field Measurements
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Raw radiosounding profiles of temperature, humidity and wind during the urbisphere Berlin campaign. Useful for urban boundary-layer structure.
Field Measurements
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One-minute wind speed and direction at 16 m from a Gill sonic at Honor Oak Park, London.
Field Measurements
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Quality-controlled half-hourly fluxes of momentum, sensible and latent heat and CO2 from city towers in Zurich and Paris, plus Doppler wind-lidar profiles, released by the EU ICOS Cities (PAUL) project.
Field Measurements
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30-minute fluxes of momentum, heat, water vapour and CO2, plus raw 10 Hz sonic data, from a site among highways and buildings at UIC; part of the Chicago CROCUS network, which also runs Doppler lidar and SODAR (open but raw, not quality-controlled).
Field Measurements
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WOCSS adapters for coupled WRF and OpenFOAM simulations using preCICE.
Simulation Software & tools RANSMesoscale model
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Hourly divergence profiles over Beijing urban areas derived from radar wind profiler measurements.
Field Measurements
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Avian-borne meteorological sensor package data from flights over Birmingham in 2018-19, giving data above rooftops in the urban boundary layer.
Field Measurements
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Continuous Doppler lidar in Baltimore from the BSEC Urban Integrated Field Lab: vertical-velocity variance, skewness and kurtosis, VAD wind profiles, boundary-layer and cloud-base height as daily CF-NetCDF files at 15-minute resolution.
Field Measurements
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A year of ARM Mobile Facility observations around Houston, aimed at sea-breeze convection and aerosol–cloud interaction, with Doppler lidar, soundings, flux and tethered-balloon data on the coastal urban boundary layer. Free ARM account needed.
Field Measurements
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Met Office UKV model output for two days used to evaluate urban sensible heat fluxes against scintillometry in London. Useful for urban NWP evaluation.
Simulation Simulation output Mesoscale model
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Mixed layer height from a ceilometer at Marylebone Road, London, 2012.
Field Measurements
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Python scripts reproducing analysis of distributed temperature sensing measurements of the coastal urban surface layer in Helsinki. Useful for urban boundary-layer turbulence analysis.
Field Software & tools
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Fluxes of CO2, heat, momentum and particles from the SMEAR III urban tower in Helsinki, 2005–2021.
Field Measurements
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Large eddy simulation results over idealised urban topography. Useful for urban boundary-layer studies.
Simulation Simulation output LES
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Eddy-covariance water, energy and carbon fluxes with ancillary meteorology at four urban landscapes in Phoenix during 2015.
Field Measurements
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17 street-level stations across the five boroughs plus rooftop eddy-covariance and Doppler-lidar / microwave-radiometer profiler sites. The flux readme warns of rooftop flow distortion.
Field Measurements
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Wind field, cloud base and mixing-layer height time series from a Doppler lidar and ceilometer network in Stuttgart ([UC]2 programme). Useful for urban boundary-layer studies.
Field Measurements
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High-resolution meteorological observations from a five-station network in Kampala, Uganda.
Field Measurements
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2D PIV wind-tunnel data of turbulent boundary layers over twelve urban roughnesses with different frontal and plan solidities. Useful for studying turbulence statistics and parameterising urban roughness.
Lab Measurements Wind tunnel
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10 Hz sonic data at 40, 80, 120, 160 and 200 m on an urban meteorological tower, July–August 2017, with fluctuations, spectra and statistics; suited to momentum and heat transport in the convective urban boundary layer.
Field Measurements
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Meteorology and air quality field campaign in London in 2011-12, with multiple sites and intensive observations during the 2012 Olympics. Useful for urban boundary-layer and air quality studies; individual datasets are available via the paper authors.
Field Measurements
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Urban atmospheric observations in London, including meteorological measurements on the BT Tower and Doppler lidar boundary-layer wind profiles. Useful for urban wind profiles, roughness and boundary-layer studies.
Field Measurements
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Air pollution field campaigns in London in 2006/7 with measurements at ground level and at 160 m on the BT Tower. Useful for studying pollutant concentrations and transport above and within a megacity.
Field Measurements
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Doppler lidar observations of the urban boundary layer over London during REPARTEE-II, including wind and boundary-layer depth. Useful for studying urban boundary-layer dynamics.
Field Measurements
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Rooftop meteorological measurements from the BT Tower during the DAPPLE campaign in London, used to reference street-level flows. Useful as reference wind and turbulence data for urban dispersion and emergency-response studies.
Field Measurements
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Large-eddy simulation data of flow, turbulence and dispersion over random urban-like obstacle arrays. Useful for urban canopy turbulence statistics and dispersion model validation.
Simulation Simulation output LES
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Wind-tunnel measurements of near-wall flow over urban-like roughness, including form drag and roughness sublayer behaviour. Useful for rough-wall boundary-layer studies and surface parameterisation.
Lab Measurements Wind tunnel