UniCredit launches research project in collaboration with Epson Meteo
UniCredit will be hosting Italy's tallest urban weather tracking station. In cooperation with Centro Epson Meteo (CEM), state-of-the-art meteorological instruments have been installed on the tallest tower at the Bank's headquarter complex in Piazza Gae Aulenti in Milan. The instruments will collect and transmit a wide range of weather data to CEM, including the temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, and rainfall.
This information will make it possible to build up historic time series of vital importance in scientific assessments to monitor local and regional climatic conditions. It will also contribute to formulating new meteorological models regarding Milan's Urban Heating Island (UHI), which will help us understand the nature, characteristics and impact of this phenomenon that influences weather parameters in every large urban area, producing the stagnation of internally generated pollution with its consequent impact on the city's liveability.
According to experts, the UniCredit Tower is an ideal tracking location, both in terms of the structure's height and the absence of any buildings in the immediate proximity, and because it allows instruments to be positioned at different levels of altitude.
The installation of specific sensors on the towers will collect and record weather statistics on an ongoing basis and in real time. This will create a digital archive, which is vital for researchers and for building increasingly accurate meteorological models, which will represent a distinct improvement on the current methodology of using helium balloons. Generally, these do not cross the central portion of the Heat Island and have the disadvantage of being extremely expensive.
The decrease in green areas in cities, compared with increases in office space, heat sources and pollution in actual fact make the weather statistics for urban areas increasingly idiosyncratic when compared with the data sourced from the areas surrounding the larger cities, where the official weather tracking stations are currently found, and where the weather balloons are usually launched from (e.g. near airports).
The research project also includes the installation of two HD webcams on the main tower, which will provide a unique, up-to-date, 360-degree panorama of the general visibility over an extensive area of Lombardy. This information will be used by meteorologists at the Centro Epson Meteo to objectively assess visibility, fog and haze levels.
Thanks to the collaboration between UniCredit and Epson Meteo, Mediaset broadcasters will run dedicated weather live broadcast from the UniCredit Tower, especially on TGCom24, the Mattino5 programme on Canale5, and the homepage of the website www.meteo.it
On the website www.unicredit-tower.it and the Meteo.it page dedicated to the Lombardy region, users can also follow the webcam images 24/7. They will be able to view the largest and most detailed panoramic view of the city of Milan and its surroundings.
Milan, October 15, 2014