About us

The Urban Climate Observatory (UCO) Berlin is an open science institution. Its purpose is long-term and integrative research on weather, climate and air quality in Berlin and the surrounding area. Long-term observations of the urban atmosphere at various locations enable investigations into the interactions between atmospheric processes and urban structure as well as climate variability and climate change. The UCO Berlin comprises three components:

  • The Urban Climate Observation Network (UCON), including Citizen Weather Stations (CWS), is used for ground-level measurements of atmospheric variables. To the UCON

  • The meteorological towers are used for the local recording of the turbulent exchange of carbon dioxide, heat and humidity, short and long-wave radiation and for phenological observations. To the measuring towers

  • Ground-based remote sensing is used to study the urban boundary layer, in particular for measuring profiles of air temperature, humidity, aerosols, wind speed and wind direction as well as for recording clouds and precipitation. To Remote Sensing

Team

The UCO Berlin is headed by the Chair of Climatology, Institute for Ecology at the Technische Universität Berlin. Team:

Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer (Profil)
Dr. Fred Meier (Profil)
Achim Holtmann (Profil)
Dr. Marco Otto (Profil)

Contact

Projects

The UCO Berlin is involved in the following reasearch projects and networks:

  • Integrated Carbon Observation System, ICOS (Link)
  • Stadtklima im Wandel – Urban Climate under Change [UC]² (Link)
  • Urbisphere (Link)
  • Open Urban Climate Observatory Berlin for environmental research and applications, OpenUCO (Link)
  • Urban Water Interfaces (Link)
  • Climate and Water under Change, CliWaC, Einstein Research Unit (Link)
  • E-PROFILE (Link)
  • PhenoCam Network (Link)

Partners

  • Institut of Meteorology, Freie Universität Berlin (Link)
  • Climate Geography, Geography Department, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (Link)
  • Lindenberg Meteorological Observatory, Richard Assmann Observatory, German Weather Service (Link)
  • Berlin University Alliance (Link)
  • Senate Department for Urban Mobility, Transport, Climate Action and the Environment (Link)
  • Chair of Environmental Meteorology, Universität Freiburg (Link)
  • Remote Sensing Lab, Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (Link)
  • Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Link)
  • Leibniz Institute of Fresh Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries (Link)
  • Working Group Climatology and Environmental Meteorology, Institute of Geoecology, Technische Universtität Braunschweig (Link)
  • Orbisens GmbH (Link)

Publications

Fenner et al. (2024)
urbisphere-Berlin campaign: Investigating multi-scale urban impacts on the atmospheric boundary layer
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0030.1

Rocha et al. (2024)
Unprivileged groups are less served by green cooling services in major European urban areas
Nature Cities, DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00077-x

Vulova et al. (2023)
City-wide, high-resolution mapping of evapotranspiration to guide climate-resilient planning
Remote Sensing of Environment, DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2023.113487

Schmitz et al. (2023)
Calibrating low-cost sensors to measure vertical and horizontal gradients of NO2 and O3 pollution in three street canyons in Berlin
Atmospheric Environment, DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2023.119830

Nicolini et al. (2022)
Direct observations of CO2 emission reductions due to COVID-19 lockdown across European urban districts
Science of The Total Environment 830. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154662

Jongen et al. (2022)
Urban Water Storage Capacity Inferred From Observed Evapotranspiration Recession
Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2021GL096069

Rocha et al. (2022)
Mapping evapotranspirative and radiative cooling services in an urban environment
Sustainable Cities and Society, DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2022.104051

Schatke et al. (2022)
Impact of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown on NO2 and PM10 concentrations in Berlin, Germany
Atmospheric Environment, DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2022.119372

Straaten et al. (2022)
Significant reduction of ultrafine particle emission fluxes to the urban atmosphere during the COVID-19 lockdown
Science of The Total Environment, DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.156516

Gillefalk et al. (2021)
Quantifying the effects of urban green space on water partitioning and ages using an isotope-based ecohydrological model
Hydrology Earth System Science, DOI: 10.5194/hess-25-3635-2021

Schmitz et al. (2021)
Unraveling a black box: An open-source methodology for the field calibration of small air quality sensors
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, DOI: 10.5194/amt-2020-489

Schneider et al. (2021)
Using the dendro-climatological signal of urban trees as a measure of urbanization and urban heat island
Urban Ecosystem, DOI: 10.1007/s11252-021-01196-2

Vulova et al. (2021)
Modeling urban evapotranspiration using remote sensing, flux footprints, and artificial intelligence
Science of The Total Environment, DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147293

Rost et al. (2020)
How Cool Are Allotment Gardens? A Case Study of Nocturnal Air Temperature Differences in Berlin, Germany
Atmosphere, DOI: 10.3390/atmos11050500

Fenner et al. (2019)
Contrasting changes of urban heat island intensity during hot weather episodes
Environmental Research Letters, DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab506b

Scherer et al. (2019)
Three-Dimensional Observation of Atmospheric Processes in Cities
Meteorologische Zeitschrift, DOI: 10.1127/metz/2019/0911

Scherer et al. (2019)
Urban Climate Under Change [UC]² – A National Research Programme for Developing a Building-Resolving Atmospheric Model for Entire City Regions
Meteorologische Zeitschrift, DOI: 10.1127/metz/2019/0913

Napoly et al. (2018)
Development and application of a statistically-based quality control for crowdsourced air temperature data
Frontiers Earth Science, DOI: 10.3389/feart.2018.00118

Meier et al. (2017)
Crowdsourcing air temperature from citizen weather stations for urban climate research
Urban Climate, DOI: 10.1016/j.uclim.2017.01.006

Fenner et al. (2017)
Intra and inter 'local climate zone' variability of air temperature as observed by crowdsourced citizen weather stations in Berlin, Germany
Meteorologische Zeitschrift, DOI: 10.1127/metz/2017/0861

Fenner et al. (2014)
Spatial and temporal air temperature variability in Berlin, Germany, during the years 2001-2010
Urban Climate, DOI: 10.1016/j.uclim.2014.02.004