City network of Berlin under the aspect of temperature measurements in different Local Climate zone's

In the city of Berlin, the Institute for Meteorology (Freie Universiät Berlin) operates a citywide meteorological network for measurements of temperature and other meteorological variables. 

During the project Urban climate under Chance (BMBF funded), additional stations were installed in the city, shortly after the project start in 2016, even to evaluate the urban model PALM-4U (Maronga et al. 2020). The model evaluation shows that there are uncertainties in the daily fluctuations: The model is too cold at midday, while it is too warm at night. The city stations measure 2m-temperature and humidity and are still in operation.  The locations of the stations were chosen such that various local climate zones (LCZ, Steward & Oke 2012) of Berlin were covered. Eight LCZs exist in the city, these are the LCZs 2 (compact midrise), 4 (open highise), 6 (open lowrise), 8 (large lowrise), A (dense trees), B (scattered trees), D (low plants) and G (water). On average 3 Stations exist in each LCZ, except in LCZ 4, where there exists only one station, with an availability of 85% of measured data. 

With this network, we are now in a position to carry out an analysis of urban climate with a focus on these existing eight LCZs. 

The results between the different LCZs during the summer months show us the urban heat island effect, which is about 4 K (LCZ 2 minus LCZ A), as well as the different timing of the occurrence of maximum and minimum temperatures. This analysis could help both stakeholders and landscape planners to redesign districts in such a way that residents benefit from a better urban climate. All station data are available in the Refubium of the Freie Universität Berlin under the keywords MEVIS and FUMINET and can be downloaded.

Maronga, B. et al. (202): Overview of the PALM model system 6.0. Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 1335–1372, 2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1335-2020