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NHCM-2

Project name: NHCM-2 – Non-Hydrostatic Climate Modelling, Part II
Project leader:Heimo Truhetz
Project team: Heimo Truhetz (Post-Doc: Modelling with WRF, interaction of the atmospheric flow with the European Alps)
Marie Piazza (Post-Doc: CCLM modelling, investigating orographic precipitation)
András Csáki (PhD-Student: CCLM Modelling, turbulence parameterization and boundary layer processes)
Partners: Climate Service Centre Germany (GERICS), Hamburg
German Weather Service (DWD), Offenbach
Leuphana Universität, Lüneburg

Sponsor:

FWF – Austrian Science Fund
Duration:Jan. 2013 - Jun. 2018

Abstract:

Due to the increasing demand for local scale climate change information, regional climate models (RCMs) are increasingly operated with higher resolved resolutions. Modern RCMs are able to capture many regional climate processes and they cover the meso-β scales (20 km to 200 km) sufficiently enough for applications in climate research. Based on the success in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and supported by the general progress in computing technology, RCMs are now starting to approach the meso-γ scales (2 km to 20 km).

This jump in scales, however, is not straightforward. Relevant processes (e.g. deep convection) on former unresolved (parameterised) scales become resolved, and it is largely unclear how current RCMs (originally developed for larger scales) are able to capture climate processes and their interplay throughout the scales. In complex terrain, where mountains have substantial effects on weather and climate, this becomes even more important due to the influence of orography. In addition, model evaluation becomes challenging: observational data sufficiently covering the natural variability only exist in exceptional cases (e.g. in special observation campaigns) and shifts in time and/or space between modelled and observed quantities (double penalty problem) limit the application of traditional error statistics.

In the previous project “Non-Hydrostatic Climate Modelling (NHCM-1)”, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (project number P19619-N10), first test simulations in climate mode on scales where deep convection becomes resolved (≤3 km grid spacing) have been conducted and analysed in the European Alpine region. The project focused on the exploration of error ranges of near surface variables and on the detection/assessment of added value by implementing both, reference data from operational nowcasting systems and evaluation techniques from NWP avoiding the double penalty problem.

Based on the scientific success of NHCM-1, NHCM-2 brings together latest developments in climate research and NWP. It (1) investigates the ability of state-of-the-art non-hydrostatic RCMs operated at convection-resolving scales to capture important orographic-induced climate processes in the European Alpine region on regional (meso-β) scales, (2) contributes to the improvement of RCMs with respect to these climate processes, (3) continues introducing advanced analysis tools and highly resolved gridded reference data from NWP in climate research, and (4) aims to enable next generation long-term climate simulations, i.e. convection-resolving climate simulations (CRCSs), in the Alpine region.

Official Website NHCM-2 

Mag. Dr.rer.nat.

Heimo Truhetz

Phone:+43 316 380 - 8442


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