Development of climate and weather services specifically for cities: CityCLIM project successfully completed

Bremen, 16 December 2024. After a duration of three years, the CityCLIM project (Next Generation City Climate Services Using Advanced Weather Models and Emerging Data Sources) coordinated by OHB System AG has been successfully completed. The project has resulted in various weather and climate services that can help cities to better deal with the consequences of climate change and specifically urban heat islands.

A high-resolution weather model optimised for the project forms the basis of the services. While conventional weather models have a resolution of several kilometres, the model used in CityCLIM has a resolution of 100 by 100 metres. This enables weather forecasts and the development of applications on the city scale. The model not only incorporates information from weather satellites, but also additional Earth observation data and the results of measurements taken on the ground.

The calculations made with the improved weather model were made available to the general public during the project period via a cloud-based data platform in the form of the following services:

•    Weather Sensation Service: Visualisation of the apparent temperature as a heat index
•    Heat Wave Information Service: Forecasting and warning of heatwaves
•    Pollution Information Service: Forecasting and warning of increased air pollution
•    Climate Information Portal: Visualisation of global climate data in an easily understandable form

For city administrations, the following additional services were offered:

•    Ultra HD-based Identification Services: Tools for the statistical analysis of heat, air pollution and air exchange in cities
•    Simulation and Mitigation Services: Tools for analysing the effectiveness of urban planning measures in relation to heat, air pollution and air exchange
•    EO-based Heat Island Simulation and Mitigation Service: Tools for analysing urban heat islands and the effectiveness of urban planning measures based on Earth observation data

All services developed in the CityCLIM project are available as prototypes and are to be made market-ready in a next step.

A consortium of European companies was involved in the development, in collaboration with scientific working groups and the four pilot cities of Karlsruhe, Luxembourg, Valencia and Thessaloniki. Four companies from the OHB Group contributed to the project: OHB System as coordinator, OHB Digital Connect, OHB Digital Services and OHB Austria (formerly OHB Digital Solutions).

CityCLIM was funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 programme.

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