Activities
Climate-Lab’s scientific mission is the networking of an instruments' system capable of monitoring key climatic and environmental variables in order to describe relationships and flows between the built-up environment and the ecosphere, together with the construction of a knowledge-base of the present and potential future climate situation.
Equipment
The Climate-lab laboratory possesses a network of instruments, some unmovable positioned in suitable sites at the Politecnico (permanent test sites), others positioned temporarily outdoors in particularly interesting study sites (temporary test sites).
- instrumentation for non-conventional measuring of variables and processes of interest in the context of climate change. Fine resolution measuring equipment of liquid precipitations, of river runoff and temperatures, of the snow cover's dynamics in mountainous areas
- measuring instruments (millimetre-wave and optical band devices) for evaluating the properties of atmospheric components (gas and precipitation)
- radiometric-type measuring instruments for evaluating the optical and radiation properties of surfaces
- stations for microclimate analysis and dynamics of green roofs in urban areas
- mobile analysers for measuring emissions and the concentration of pollutants
Services provided
Climate-Lab wishes to become a centre of excellence for high-tech activities able to evaluate and understand the wide-ranging impacts of climate change, to build robust and reliable scenarios and to create scientifically-based mitigation and adaptation strategies. The planned Climate-Lab instrumentation, once appropriately shared in an easily accessible network, will provide support to the development of shared researches on climate change at a University level. Climate-Lab can:
- provide a knowledge base for the assessment of mitigation and adaptation strategies on the basis of observational variables and of available scenarios (urban, neighbourhood, building, building components, functionalisation of materials interventions etc.)
- help to build climate databases specifically addressed to setting up reference scenarios, based on IPCC studies
- provide support for designing and testing methodologies for the study of climate change effects in various parts of the world and on different spatial and temporal scales
- provide support for evaluating energy choices, planning natural and building resources linked to the climate evolution on the basis of observational variables and of available scenarios
- develop methods, processing procedures and “commissioned” protocols for stakeholders, various public and private institutions, which require the acquisition of knowledge in terms of climate change impacts on a European scale
- provide support to the University staff in order to substantiate the interdisciplinary and interdepartmental activities of the Politecnico in relation to its recent accession to the Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici Foundation CMCC, reinforcing the Politecnico’s commitment towards study, mitigation and adaptation to climate change
Procedures and costs of using equipment
Given the specific and particular nature of the equipment and of the topics dealt with, the cooperation/support procedures and any eventual cost to access the Climate-Lab services and equipment, both by the University staff and by external bodies, will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the members of the laboratory.