Rainer Hilland

Doctoral student and research assistant

Werthmannstrasse 10
79085 Freiburg

Biography

Rainer Hilland studied Geography at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He received his B.A. Honours in 2016, and completed his M.Sc. in 2018 under the supervision of Dr. J. Voogt. From 2019 he is pursuing his PhD at the Chair of Environmental Meteorology at the University of Freiburg.

Research

Rainer Hilland's research interests are in the field of urban micrometeorology. His Master's research, titled The Effect of Sub-Facet Scale Geometry on Vertical Facet Temperatures in Urban Street Canyons, investigated micro-scale surface temperature variations of urban street canyons. His doctoral research focuses on the fundamental nature of atmospheric turbulence near the surface.

Current and Past Research Projects

• ICOS Cities – Pilot Applications in Urban Landscapes (H2020)
• ERC Synergy Grant "urbisphere"
• Namib Turbulence EXperiment (NamTEX)

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• Hilland R, Hashemi J, Stagakis S, Brunner D, Constantin L, Kljun N, Molinier B, Hammer S, Emmenegger L, and Christen A, 2025. Sectoral attribution of greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions using multi-species eddy covariance on a tall tower in Zurich, Switzerland. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics [preprint].
• Kunz AK, Borchardt L, Christen A, Coletta JD, Eritt M, Gutierrez X, Hashemi J, Hilland R, Jordan A, Kneissl R, Legendre V, Levin I, Preunkert S, Rubli P, Stagakis S, and Hammer S, 2025. A relaxed eddy accumulation flask sampling system for ¹⁴C-based partitioning of fossil and non-fossil CO₂ fluxes. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques [preprint].
• Klimenko N, Zhao K, Hilland R, Zhang F, Voogt J, Ratti C, 2025: Instant Infrared: Estimating Urban Surface Temperatures from Street View Imagery. Building and Environment 267.
• Hilland R,  Christen A, 2024: A Systematic Investigation of the Applicability of Taylor’s Hypothesis in an Idealized Surface Layer. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, 190, 22. 
• Hilland RVJ, Bernhofer C, Bohmann M, Christen A, Katurji M, Maggs-Kölling G, Krauß M, Larsen JA, Marais E, Pitacco A, Schumacher B, Spirig R, Vendrame N, Vogt R, 2022: The Namib Turbulence Experiment: Investigating Surface–Atmosphere Heat Transfer in Three Dimensions. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 103 (3) E741–E760.
• Hilland RVJ, Voogt JA, 2020: The effect of sub-facet scale surface structure on wall brightness temperatures at multiple scales. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 140: 767-785.

Conference contributions

• Hilland R, Brunner D, Stagakis S, and Christen A, 2025: Sectoral attribution of measured CO₂, NO_x, and CO eddy covariance fluxes in Zurich using a linear mixing model. Urban Greenhouse Gas Conference and Stakeholder Summit, Geneva, Switzerland. Oral.
• Hilland RVJ, Stagakis S, Pascal R, Emmenegger L, Bignotti L, Loubet B, Hammer S, Christen A, 2024: Flux ratios of CO₂, CO, and NO_x: an inter-city comparison between Paris and Zurich using urban tall-tower eddy covariance. ICOS Science Conference 2024, Versailles, France. Oral.
• Hilland RVJ, Hashemi J, Rubli P, Stagakis S, Emmenegger L, Hammer S, Vogt R, Christen A, 2023: Diurnal and seasonal patterns in urban eddy-covariance fluxes of CO₂ and co-emitted species on a tall tower in Zurich, Switzerland. AGU Fall Meeting 2023, San Francisco, USA. Oral.
• Hilland RVJ, Christen A, Vogt R, 2022: Investigating Taylor's frozen turbulence hypothesis in the surface layer at an ideal desert field site using fibre-optic distributed temperature sensing. DACH, Leipzig, Germany. Oral.

• Hilland RVJ, Voogt JA, Zanetti M, and Kukko A. The effect of sub-facet scale geometry on vertical facet temperatures, 2018. International Conference on Urban Climate 10, New York, NY, USA. Oral.

Technical reports

• Hilland RVJ, Bernhofer C, Bohmann M, Christen A, Krauß M, Larsen JA, Pitacco A, Spirig R, Vendrame N, Vogt R, 2022: Namib turbulence experiment (NamTEX) data report. Professur für Umweltmeteorologie, V1 (Public), 10.6094/UNIFR/231047