Urban Climates conference has been successful
(16/08/2012)
Every three years the International Association for Urban Climates (IAUC) organises a conference on the climates of cities. In 2009 at ICUC7 (in Yokohama, Japan), Dublin won the right to host 8th International Conference on Urban Climate (ICUC8), which was held over a five day period (August 6-10, 2012) and was based mainly in the Health Science building. Over 450 delegates attended, 95% of who came from outside Ireland. The largest single nationality represented was Japan (50) where there is a long history of research into the effects that cities have on climate at all scales. However the growth in this field of study was reflected in the broad range of delegates (representing over 50 nationalities) and the large proportion of graduate students attending (35%). ICUC8 delegates included meteorologists interested in air quality, climatologists interested in the contribution of cities to global climate change and urban planners/designers interested in creating better cities. ICUC8 was held with the urban meteorology section of the American Meteorological Society, so there was good representation from North America. The full programme is available at the conference website and the papers presented at the conference will be available on the IAUC website by November.
The event was sponsored partly by Science Foundation Ireland and the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, the World Meteorological Organization and the European Space Agency sponsored attendance at the conference for those from less prosperous countries.
There is an Irish angle to this research that we hope will be advanced by hosting ICUC8. We used the event to inaugurate an urban observation site located on the rooftop at Kevin Street DIT. The instruments at this site record the fluxes of energy and of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the city surface and provides an excellent place to run international workshops. Finally, ICUC8 was used as an opportunity for the Board of the IAUC to meet.