Urban climatology is a new subject that started from the late nineteenth century. Most urban climatic phenomena, such as urban energy budget, urban heat island, air pollution dispersion
and urban ventilation have been investigated, but more needs to be done scientifically. There is a great need to scientifically understand urban climatic characteristics and conditions especially for the tropical regions like Hong Kong. There have been many urban climate researches in the world, but most of them focus on low density cities with temperate climate. For high density cities or compact urban living scenario, we are still at the beginning stage to explore their climatic condition and characteristics.
Key topics
To review recent advances in climatology and its application in urban design, explore the new concepts and techniques for modeling and analyzing biometeorology focusing on the impact of urban climate on human comfort, and as well as to address the hot and important issue of climate change and air pollution. This field of study is multidisciplinary work from areas including climatology, biometeorology, meteorology, geo-science, environmental science, mechanical engineering, architecture, urban design and town planning; To bring together climatologists, meteorologists, environmental scientists, geo-scientists wind engineers, architects and urban planners to exchange their views and generate new ideas regarding challenges of fast urban development and climate change so as to contribute toward the further promotion; To conduct in-depth discussions and facilitate a brain-storming forum on selected state-of-the-art methods, design strategies and plan actions for understanding how urban climatic data and information could be employed in urban management and solving important numerical practical problems in climate change spatial planning.