MATTHIAS ROTH
My research seeks to understand how land-use changes affect local climates with a particular focus on cities and the role they play in climate change and the application of such knowledge to climate sensitive urban design. As an experimental researcher I have been involved in observations of the urban heat island (UHI), energy balance, carbon dioxide fluxes and fundamental turbulence properties in many cities on three continents.
Findings fom this research are important to improve our understanding of the physical transfer processes in the urban environment. Applications include the prediction of the exchanges of energy and moisture at the surface, dispersion of pollutants, cycling of atmospheric trace species that play a key role in climate change or human thermal comfort and climate sensitive urban design.
I am currently researching the following themes:
- Turbulent transfer, energy, mass and CO2 exchange in Singapore
- Temporal and spatial dynamics of the urban heat island in Singapore
- Urban climate modeling