1. Introduction
IUM is a national-level scientific research institute. Its predecessor was the Beijing Institute of Meteorological Sciences, which was established in 1974. In 1999, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality jointly established the Beijing Urban Meteorological Engineering Technology Research Center, which is linked to the Beijing Institute of Meteorological Sciences. In 2002, in the reform of national public research institutes, IUM was established and became one of the eight national professional meteorological institutes under CMA. In 2013, it was recognized by the Ministry of Science and Technology as a national international scientific and technological cooperation base for urban meteorological research. On October 26, 2018, with the joint support and promotion of CMA and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, IUM was established as an academy. In August 2022, it was selected as the first key innovation team of the China Meteorological Administration, and in November 2022, it established Key Laboratory of Urban Meteorology of China Meteorological Administration.
IUM has won support from the National Science and Technology Research Program, the Public Welfare Industry Research Fund, the National Science and Technology Support Program, the National International Science and Technology Cooperation Fund, the National Key Research and Development Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Beijing Science and Technology Plan, and the Beijing Natural Science Foundation, and other scientific research projects. All these have promoted the rapid development of IUM and the discipline of urban meteorology.
2. Disciplines
IUM aims to build a world-leading urban meteorological research institution, a demonstration base for combining scientific research and application, and a training base for urban meteorological talents. In order to enhance the ability of urban meteorological disaster prevention and mitigation, and the weather protection of ecological civilization, IUM focuses on the strategic needs of national urbanization and ecological civilization construction. IUM also provides strong scientific and technological support to cope with climate change.
IUM aims to improve the 0-24 hour refined objective forecast and early warning accuracy rate, with the Rapid-refresh Multi-scale Analysis and Prediction System (RMAPS) as the core, forming a representative advantageous discipline direction, and solving the problems in urban development. The ability in meteorological science issues, the development of core technology for meteorological business services, and the training of meteorological science and technology talents have been continuously improved.
IUM is responsible for the development of urban meteorology disciplines in China. IUM conducts research on urban boundary layer observation and modeling, fine-scale urban weather and environment modeling and forecasting, urban climate and ecology. IUM transfers urban meteorological scientific and technological achievements to operations and applications. IUM has leading positions in 5 disciplinary areas: 1) Urban meteorological observation and experiment, 2) Urban land-atmosphere interaction process and mechanism, 3) Urban fine-scale weather and atmospheric environment forecast, 4) Urban meteorological disaster assessment and early warning, 5) Urban climate and climate change. A more systematic and complete "Research-Modeling-Application" urban meteorological science and technology innovation system has been established.
Key research areas and tasks:
-Urban boundary layer and high-impact weather mechanism. Carry out urban boundary layer and atmospheric environment observation research, including urban atmospheric boundary layer detection, local circulation characteristics and influence mechanism, and urban atmospheric environment. Carry out research and application of atmospheric chemistry models, including dynamic update technology of emission sources, initial field assimilation technology of atmospheric chemistry, and optimization and evaluation of aerosol physical and chemical mechanisms.
-Urban fine-scale weather forecast. Carry out nowcasting research, including networked weather radar application technology, nowcasting technology, rapid multi-source data fusion and seamless integrated forecasting technology. Carry out numerical weather prediction research, including convective scale and key technologies for assimilation of remote sensing observation data, optimization and improvement of key physical parameterization schemes in models, and research and development of weather-chemical online coupling systems. Carrying out artificial intelligence meteorological application research, including the construction of meteorological big data sharing platform, the research and development of machine learning-based meteorological numerical models, the research and development of machine learning-based nowcasting and data fusion technology, and the prototype research and development of weather forecasting intelligent consultation system.
-Urban climate and climate change. Closely focusing on the strategic needs of the country's urbanization and ecological civilization construction, comprehensively enhance the research and application capabilities of urban climate and ecological development. Carry out research on urban human-land-air coupling mechanism and numerical simulation, urban climate change, and urban climate service.
-Research achievements to operations and applications. Build a center for transferring research achievement to operations and applications. Build a demonstration and service base for business transfer of research development and products. Maintain and improve the research-development environment and testing-evluation system. Support the operations of RMAPS.
3. Our Team
IUM has 122 posts in its full strength. By the end of 2022, there are 97 employees, of which 68 with PhD and 67 with senior professional titles. Among them, 16 are research fellows/research-level senior engineers, 1 is selected as the first batch of young Beijing scholars, 3 are selected as the leading scientific and technological talents of CMA, 2 are selected as members of the national-level innovation team of high-resolution data assimilation and numerical weather model research and climate research of CMA, 3 are the leaders of the innovation team of the Beijing Meteorological Service, 1 is selected as the leading talent of Beijing's ten-millions of leading talents, and 1 person is selected as the leading talent of the Beijing High-level Innovative and Entrepreneurial Talent Support Program. Young researchers are the main research force. IUM has trained 100 postgraduates and 10 post-doctorates.
4. Cooperation
Relying on Beijing municipal, national and international science and technology cooperation bases, IUM continues to carry out in-depth exchanges and cooperation with high-level scientific research institutions at home and abroad. Since 2004, IUM has established a good cooperative relationship with internationally renowned scientific research institutions. In 2017, the Joint Urban Meteorology Research Program (JUMP) was established with American University Atmospheric Research Consortium and the Meteorological Big Data Laboratory was jointly established with the School of Mathematical Sciences of Peking University, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Beijing Institute of Big Data. Based on the long-term good cooperative relationship, IUM has attracted and gathered a group of internationally renowned scientists to jointly carry out research work, cultivated a large number of young and middle-aged scientific and technological talents, and promoted the vigorous and in-depth development of urban meteorology.
IUM has carried out the Study of Urban Rainfall-impacts and Fog/haze (SURF). In response to the urbanization meteorological environmental conditions that affect heavy precipitation and haze, scientific observations have been carried out in conjunction with internationally renowned research institutions to improve understanding of the relationship between cities and weather and climate. The high-resolution numerical model system has been developed to improve urban precipitation and haze monitoring and forecasting capabilities. The project was included in Joint Research Demonstration Project (RDP) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Atmospheric Monitoring Urban Meteorology and Environmental Research Working Group, the World Weather Research Program Nowcasting and Mesoscale Model Research Working Group, and the High Impact Weather Working Group, and was specially invited to participate in WMO’s compilation of the Guidelines for Integrated Services of Urban Weather, Environment and Climate.
IUM focuses on the 0-24 hour forecast accuracy improvement project of the capital's meteorological modernization construction, and strives to develop a new generation of RMAPS. In 2016, Collaborative Innovation Alliance on Numerical Model System in Great North China was established with the meteorological departments of 15 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in North China to promote the improvement of regional numerical weather prediction capabilities.
5. Serving the Society
Facing the increasing demand of the government, decision-making institutions and the public for high resolution and fast-updating grid-based digital weather analysis and forecasting products, IUM continues to improve the urban meteorological and environmental forecasting capabilities of RMAPS. Data products are widely used in meteorological disaster forecasting and early warning services in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. They play an important role in weather forecasting services in the electric power, transportation, water affairs, tourism, new energy and aviation industries, and are used by the Beijing Municipal Government for decision-making. They are also used for smart phone weather forecast applications.
IUM will adhere to the motto of " Perfect Virtue, Research Advocating, Truth Seeking, Innovation Pursuing ". It is committed to serving the national ecological civilization development strategy and the coordinated development strategy of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The coordinated development of refined numerical forecasting technology in the Great Northern Region, the modern management of capital cities and the guarantee of meteorological services for major events.
