Welcome to my PhD projects: Urban climate adaptation

I am currently pursuing my PhD at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester (UoM), United Kingdom, under the supervision of Dr. Zhonghua Zheng (Assistant Professor in Data Science & Environmental Analytics) and Prof. David Topping (Professor of the Digital Environment, UoM; Fellow of the Alan Turing Data Science Institute).

I earned my Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering (2023) from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS, China), hosted by Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (one of the top research units for ecology and environmental sciences), under the supervision of Prof. Dongsheng Wang (2022- Zhejiang University, China) and the collaboration of Dr. Hui Xu. Before that, I received my B.Eng. in Environmental Engineering (2020) from China University of Mining and Technology-Beijing (CUMTB, China), under the supervision of Prof. Caihong Yu.

My research focuses on applying statistics, reinforcement learning/optimization, and data-driven modeling to solve environmental problems, including intelligent urban adaptation, urban climate modeling, climate downscaling, and public health.

If you are interested in the topics above and would like to engage in a discussion, please feel free to reach out to me via email at (junjie.yu AT postgrad DOT manchester DOT ac DOT uk). (English, Mandarin, Cantonese)

🔥 News

📝 Softwares

pyclmuapp

pyclmuapp-cloud: Democratizing local urban climate simulations
Junjie Yu, Keith Oleson, Zhonghua Zheng

• Online local-scale (1KM) urban climate simulations
• pyclmuapp for urban climate modeling
• U-Surf for 1KM urban surface parameters
• Integration of local climate zone map

obswx

obswx: A Python package for accessing observational meteorological data
Junjie Yu, Yuan Sun, Haofan Wang, Zhiyi Song, David Topping, Zhonghua Zheng

• UK historical monthly weather data
• HadISD station data
• NOAA ISD station

CLMU-App

CLMU-App: Enabling Operating System Independent Urban Climate Simulations
Junjie Yu, Zhonghua Zheng, Yuan Sun, Keith Oleson

• CLMU-App supports AMD64 and ARM64 platforms.
• Key features:
  • single point case for urban climate simulations.
  • urban climate exploration, e.g., test urban parameter sensitivity
  • test code locally before an expensive simulation

📝 Publications

at UoM

1. Yu, J., Oleson, K., Qin, Y., Zhao, L., Topping, D., and Zheng, Z.: Optimizing the Rainwater Harvesting and Roof Sprinkling System to Adapt to Urban Extreme Heat, Earth's Future, 14, e2026EF008878, 2026.
   Media Highlights: The University of Manchester, The National, Euronews, The Economic Times, Water Magazine, Sustainable Futures at The University of Manchester, and Mirage News.
2. Yu, J., Zheng, Z., Ni, J., and Ji, J.: Empowerment of accurate modeling of anaerobic membrane bioreactors by automated machine learning, Journal of Environmental Management, 401, 128801, 2026.
3. Yu, J., Schreck, J. S., Gagne, D. J., Oleson, K. W., Li, J., Liang, Y., Liao, Q., Sun, M., Topping, D. O., and Zheng, Z.: Reinforcement Learning (RL) Meets Urban Climate Modeling: Investigating the Efficacy and Impacts of RL-Based HVAC Control, ArXiv Preprint, 2025.
4. Xia, J., Ling, F., Li, Z., Yu, J., Zhang, H., Topping, D. O., Bai, L., and Zheng, Z.: Learning Urban Climate Dynamics via Physics-Guided Urban Surface--Atmosphere Interactions, Proceedings of the Thirty-Ninth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2025, Main Conference), 2025.
5. Yu, J., Zheng, Z., Lindley, S., Zhao, L., Wang, C., Wu, Q., Li, L., Topping, D., Schreck, J., Gagne, D., and Oleson, K.: Leveraging Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) for Urban Climate Emulation, Big Data and Earth System, 3, 100040, 2025.
6. Yu, J., Yuan, S., Lindley, S., Jay, C., Topping, D., Oleson, K., and Zheng, Z.: Integration and Execution of Community Land Model Urban (CLMU) in a Containerized Environment, Environ. Model. Softw., 188, 106391, 2025.
7. Wang, K., Yu, J., Zhang, H., Li, Z., and Zheng, Z.: Leverage a Cloud-based Big Data Processing Platform for Climate Extremes Research, AGU Fall Meeting 2023 Abstract, 2023.

at RCEES

1. Sun, H., Jiao, R., Yu, J., and Wang, D.: Combined effects of particle size and humic acid corona on the aggregation kinetics of nanoplastics in aquatic environments, Sci. Total Environ., 901, 165987, 2023.
2. Yu, J., Xu, H., Yang, X., Sun, H., Jin, Z., and Wang, D.: Floc formation and growth during coagulation removing humic acid: Effect of stirring condition, Sep. Purif. Technol., 302, 122084, 2022.
3. Yu, J., Xu, H., Wang, D., Sun, H., Jiao, R., Liu, Y., Jin, Z., and Zhang, S.: Variations in NOM During Floc Aging: Effect of Typical Al-based Coagulants and Different Particle Size, Water Res., 218, 118486, 2022.
4. Yu, J., Jiao, R., Sun, H., Xu, H., He, Y., and Wang, D.: Removal of microorganic pollutants in aquatic environment: The utilization of Fe (VI), J. Environ. Manage., 316, 115328, 2022.
5. Yu, J., Xu, H., Sun, H., Jin, Z., and Wang, D.: Mechanism on the effects of floc aging and pH adjustment on reflux feed water and coagulation, China Environmental Science, 42(10), 4612–4620, 2022. (in Chinese).
6. Sun, H., Jiao, R., Yang, Q., Yu, J., and Wang, D.: Aggregation and settling characteristics of particulate matter and DOM in a southern China reservoir: Influence of hydraulic conditions and dosing methods, Process. Saf. Environ. Prot., 166, 500–511, 2022.
7. Wang, Z., Xu, H., Yu, J., Zhao, C., and Wang, D.: Effects of nano- and micro-particles on coagulation process of aluminum-based coagulants and fouling of ultrafiltration membrane, China Environmental Science, 42(10), 4621–4630, 2022. (in Chinese).
8. Li, M., Xu, H., Wang, D., Wang, X., and Yu, J.: Comparison of the effect of AlCl3 and Al13 on sludge conditioning in water supply plant, Chinese Journal of Environmental Engineering, 15(3), 1075-1082, 2021. (in Chinese).

📅 Talks

1. Junjie Yu. Cloud computing and AI accelerate scientific research: Taking urban climate as an example. Invited talk in University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. June 2026
2. Junjie Yu. An Open-Source Framework for Accessible Community Land Model Urban Simulations. International Symposium on Urban Climate and Environment. 2026.
3. Junjie Yu. An Open-Source Framework for Accessible Community Land Model Urban Simulations. EGU 2026. 2026.
4. Junjie Yu. Local Urban Climate-Aware HVAC Control via Reinforcement Learning. Land Model and Biogeochemistry Working Group Meeting 2026. 2026.
5. Junjie Yu. Democratizing Urban Climate Modeling with an Open-Source Framework. UoM-CUHK joint workshop: Earth system modelling for environmental/climate risk assessments and adaptations. 2025.
6. Junjie Yu. Integration and Execution of Community Land Model Urban (CLMU) in a Containerized Environment. 12th International Conference on Urban Climate. 2025.
7. Junjie Yu. Integration and Execution of Community Land Model Urban (CLMU) in a Containerized Environment. Crisis Studies and Mitigation Annual Meeting. 2025.
8. Junjie Yu. Integration and Execution of Community Land Model Urban (CLMU) in a Containerized Environment. 30th Annual CESM Workshop. 2025.
9. Junjie Yu. Integration and Execution of Community Land Model Urban (CLMU) in a Containerized Environment. Centre for Atmospheric Science seminar. 2025.
10. Junjie Yu. Towards urban climate digital twins: a containerized urban climate model (Travel funded). Transforming Urban Living with AI and Digital Twins. 2024.
11. Junjie Yu. Pyclmuapp: A Python Package for Quick Use of Community Land Model Urban. NERC's Digital Gathering 2024. 2024.
12. Junjie Yu. Reinforcement Learning for Earth and Environmental Sciences. The Group Meeting of Machine Integration and Learning for Earth Systems of Computational & Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) of The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). 2023.

📖 Teaching

• 2025.08: Instructor, Urban climate modeling and automated machine learning for weather data modeling for the exchange program of undergraduate students from the School of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, China and the College of Earth Sciences, Jilin University, China
• 2025.01: Graduate Teaching Assistant, EART11200 The Natural Scientists Toolkit
• 2025.01: Graduate Teaching Assistant, EART60702 Earth and Environmental Data Science 2023-24 2nd Semester
• 2024.08: Instructor, Observational weather data processing and automated machine learning for weather data modeling for the exchange program of undergraduate students from the School of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, China at The University of Manchester, UK

📖 Services

Event Organizations

• 2026.01: Coordinator of Urban Weather Intelligence in the Cloud, at The University of Manchester, funded by UKRI IAA Starter Fund & UoM-CUHK Joint Research Fund.
• 2025.05: Coordinator of Urban Climate Resilience Workshop, at The University of Manchester, funded by UKRI IAA Starter Fund & UoM-CUHK Joint Research Fund.
• 2025-2026: Coordinator of Seminar of Centre for Atmospheric Science 2025, at The University of Manchester.

🎖 Honors and Awards

• 2025.06 The University of Manchester Open Research Award 2025
• 2024.11 Travel funding to attend Transforming Urban Living with AI and Digital Twins
• 2023.09 Significant Contributor in City Brain Open Research - Open Data Computing Workshop on Urban Climate
• 2022.06 National Scholarship for Graduate Students (the highest honor for postgraduates in China, 3%)
• 2020.06 Excellent Graduates in Beijing (5%)
• 2019.06 Special-Class Award in Beijing Energy and Water Conservation Low Carbon Emission Reduction Social Practice and Technology Competition
• 2018.12 Second Prize in Beijing Chemistry Experiment Competition
• 2017.11 First Prize in National University Student Mathematics Competition

📖 Educations

• 2023.09 – now, PhD Student, The University of Manchester (UoM), Manchester, UK
• 2020.09 – 2023.06, MS, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing, China
• 2016.09 – 2020.06, BEng, China University of Mining and Technology – Beijing (CUMTB), Beijing, China
• 2013.09 – 2016.06, Guangdong Guangya High School, Guangzhou, China