Keeping cool in cities: How a builder ended up working with climate scientists

Our cities are getting hotter and we’re not prepared for it, but there’s hope! Monitoring and modelling can help us adapt.

Our climate is changing and bringing with it more extreme weather events, with the UK increasingly vulnerable to heatwave waves and drought over summer months; these heatwaves are forecast to become more frequent and intense over the coming decades. The fabric of cities can exacerbate periods of extreme heat due to a phenomenon called the urban heat island. We can use models to predict how our built environment can adapt to these changing conditions, and we can monitor our existing environment to understand in more detail how different parts of our cities respond.

In this lecture, Jim will explain how we can use building modelling to create more efficient buildings that provide us with comfortable and healthy indoor environments. He will also explain how his research in the field of building simulation has led his work to expand to large-scale urban environment monitoring. Jim operates the Sensing Leeds network which encompasses hundreds of environmental sensors installed across the city. Working in partnership with Leeds City Council and the University of Leeds, data from this sensor network has allowed Jim to quantify the changing climate in the city, and in particular to evaluate the impact that our green spaces and urban woodlands have on microclimates and heat stress.

Professor Jim Parker

Professor Jim Parker leads the sustainable urban environment research within the Leeds Sustainability Institute, which is central to Leeds Beckett’s University’s core research theme of greener sustainable communities. Jim operates a city-wide network of environmental sensors across Leeds in partnership with the University of Leeds and Leeds City Council, that capture millions of data points that help us to understand our urban atmosphere. These data are openly available through the Sensing Leeds platform, an unprecedented resource for the city. Jim has particular interests in the urban heat island phenomenon and how green spaces help to offset this effect. His applied urban monitoring and modelling research allows him to work with a wide range of commercial, public and third sector partners, exploring solutions for our changing climate and evolving energy infrastructure.

This lecture is part of Leeds Beckett University's inaugural professional lecture series.

Description supplied by the event organiser.