Microclimate simulation demo of Helsinki

This analysis has the simulation results of the microclimate of one block in Punavuori, Helsinki.

An urban microclimate is the climate of any urban area that is different to its surrounding area. An urban heat island is one type of microclimate that is created when an urban area becomes warmer than the surrounding area.

The objective of simulating the urban microclimate is to study the impact of the urban heat island phenomena in neighborhoods, to understand the cause-effect relationship between the built environment and extreme heat impact. The analysis is made with SOLENE-microclimat. This technology used 3D-models to simulate the components of the microclimate such as air temperature, solar exposure and wind speed.

The simulation results mentioned are available in the following formats for each hour of the day 15/07. 3D Shapefiles can be visualised in softwares like QGIS. The environmental variables presented are provided in a CSV-format which can be attached to the 3D shapefiles based on their common variable “cell_ID”. VTU files can be visualised with Paraview software. Every simulated hour has its own VTU file.

Available information of urban environmental variables in dataset:

• Surface Temperature in Celsius (°C ), as Mesh (2D), for all the surfaces in the simulation area.
• Air Temperature in Celsius (°C), as Mesh (2D) and Tetrahedron (3D), for all the surfaces and 3D space in and above the simulation area. Air temperature for 2D Mesh representing tree surfaces represents the surface temperatures of the leaves of the trees.
• Universal Thermal Comfort Index in Celsius (°C), as Mesh (2D), for the area of interest in the simulation area not including building walls, roofs and trees.
• Relative Humidity in percentages (% x 100), as Mesh (2D), for all the surfaces in the simulation area.
• Wind Speed & Direction (m/s), as Tetrahedron (3D), for the 3D space above the simulation area.
• Evapotranspiration (mm/s), as Mesh (2D), for the surfaces representing green areas and water bodies.

Used coordination system: ETRS-GK25 (EPSG:3879)

Vector layers:

• Air_point_SHP
• Surface_trinagle
• Surface_point

Other files:

• air_data_2021_07_15.csv
• surface_data_2021_07_15.csv
• 2D-meshes (VTU)
• 3D-tetrahydron (VTU)

Vector layer attributes and their descriptions:

• "Tair": Air Temperature
• "Tsurf": Surface Temperature
• "ET": Evapotranspiration
• "RelatHumid": Relative Humidity
• "UTCI": Universal Thermal Climate Index
• "Time": Timestep

Other used datasets:

• 3D Building data
• Urban Tree Database
• Register of public areas in the City of Helsinki
• Helsinki Map Service Digital Elevation Model
• National Land Survey of Helsinki
• Weather Data
• Regional Land Cover
• Buildings in Helsinki

The analysis is made by Ecoten - Urban Comfort.