Temperature, wind and humidity - measurement data now also coming from Bockenheim
air temperature, wind force or humidity in Frankfurt: since Thursday, 3. August, Frankfurt has another climate station in the district of Bockenheim. "We can now record our own climate data and thus advise the Frankfurter:innen even better," says climate and environment department head Rosemarie Heilig. "I'm pleased to be able to put something practical and innovative, typical of Frankfurt, into operation on the grounds of the Environmental Office."
In an original weather hut donated to the city by the German Weather Service (DWD), temperature and humidity are measured at a height of two meters in the courtyard of the Environmental Office. In addition, air pressure, precipitation, wind and radiation are recorded on the roof of the building at a height of 20 meters. The measurement data is transmitted via LoRaWAN (LOng RAnge Wide Area Network) radio technology.
The head of the climate department and initiator of the climate station, Hans-Georg Dannert, says: "The measurement data from the climate station can be used excellently to raise public awareness of the topics of weather and climate, for expert opinions and as input data for model simulations."
"The data from the climate station can also become interesting for our topics of nature conservation, water and immission control," emphasizes the head of the environmental office, Peter Dommermuth, as the host of the climate station. "In addition, the weather hut in the courtyard attracts attention and interest," he adds."
The climate station is operated by the climate department in cooperation with Frankfurter Entsorgungs- und Service GmbH (FES), which is also financing the pilot project in order to gain its own experience in dealing with special sensor technology in combination with LoRaWAN. In return, the climate department provided its own application experience and worked together with the IT specialists IoT Concepts from Frankfurt and Clickbar from Darmstadt, commissioned by FES, on the project implementation over a period of two years. During this time, several technical hurdles such as power and sensor failures were overcome, and hardware and software were optimized. "In the future, the topic of smart cities, i.e. the use of data-based insights, will also become increasingly important in the climate and environmental sector. In this respect, working with the data from our climate station offers some options for the future," says Dannert.
Meanwhile, the climate station's measurement sensors are running at full speed, radioing their data to the gateways, from where it is fed into a database. In an automated process, the measured values are checked for plausibility before they are processed and made available to the public as live data, statistics and interactive diagrams on the Internet. In addition to these visualizations, an extensive export of the time series in tabular form is possible, from which especially scientific and engineering target groups in the research context benefit.
Nevertheless, the Bockenheim climate station does not come close to the strict standards of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which the DWD sets for its official weather stations, with regard to the requirements for location, measurement technology, data transmission and quality control. However, Tobias Fuchs, DWD Director Climate and Environment, explains: "Despite the increasing use of satellite and radar data, ground stations with their punctual measurements remain elementary for the German Weather Service. The urban climate station Bockenheim with its temporally high-resolution climate data complements our two weather stations in Frankfurt, at the airport and in the Westend."
On the Internet, the measurement data are available at klimastation.frankfurt.de can be found, further information on the Bockenheim climate station can be found at frankfurt.de/klimastation.
