PhD Candidate · Urban Climate
Shankar Sharma
Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) | UNSW Sydney | ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather
I investigate how urbanisation influences rainfall and the urban thermal environment using high-resolution convection-permitting WRF simulations coupled with time-evolving Local Climate Zone (LCZ) datasets and satellite precipitation observations from GPM IMERG. My research integrates numerical modelling, multi-decadal urban morphology datasets, and satellite observations to quantify urban rainfall and thermal responses, distinguish the impacts of urban growth from natural climate variability, and improve understanding of the physical processes linking urbanisation to local weather and climate.
Researcher snapshot
What I work on
Urban rainfall, urban climate, and human thermal environments using convection-permitting WRF simulations, time-evolving Local Climate Zone (LCZ) datasets, and GPM IMERG satellite observations.
Methods
Convection-permitting WRF modelling, satellite precipitation analysis, Local Climate Zone (LCZ) mapping, QGIS/GIS, storm-object tracking, and geospatial climate data analysis.
Affiliation
Based at the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC), UNSW Sydney, and affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather. Formerly affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
Research themes
Multi-decadal Local Climate Zone mapping
Developed time-evolving Local Climate Zone (LCZ) datasets for Greater Sydney to quantify urban growth and support urban climate modelling.
High-resolution urban climate modelling
Developed convection-permitting WRF simulations coupled with time-evolving urban morphology to quantify the climatic impacts of urban growth.
Urban heat & human thermal exposure
Quantified how three decades of urban growth altered urban heat, surface energy exchange, and human thermal exposure across Greater Sydney.
Urbanisation impacts on rainfall
Quantifying how urban growth influences rainfall characteristics, precipitation extremes, and storm behaviour using convection-permitting simulations.
Urban rainfall trends & IMERG retrieval uncertainty
Evaluated satellite-derived urban rainfall trends by separating retrieval uncertainty from genuine urban rainfall signals.
Rainfall object tracking & storm dynamics
Investigating storm evolution, movement, merging, splitting, and lifecycle to understand how urban environments influence convective organisation.
Read the detailed descriptions on the Research page.