The Atmospheric Boundary Layer in Numerical Weather Prediction

The Atmospheric Boundary Layer in Numerical Weather Prediction is project funded by the Deutscher Wetterdienst. One of its work packages, dealing with the Analysis and representation of SGS motions in BLs over complex terrain has been endorsed by TEAMx.

Small-scale coherent motions such as thermally driven flows and internal gravity waves are important in boundary layers over complex terrain. The impact of these motions on the atmosphere over mountainous terrain will be investigated systematically, using high-resolution numerical simulations. Guided by these results, one sub-grid-scale (SGS) parametrization will be improved and two different new SGS models will be developed in order to represent the effect of these motions in coarser numerical weather prediction models.

The project consists of two parts:

  • The convective boundary layer (CBL) over mountainous regions: Thermally driven flows and development of a SGS model (Jan Weinkämmerer’s PhD project).
  • Towards an improved parameterization of small-scale orographic impacts on the ABL and the lower atmosphere (Julian Quimbayo-Duarte’s post-doc project).

This project is funded by the Deutscher Wetterdienst within the HErZ programme, runs from 2019 to 2022 at the Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences of the Goethe University Frankfurt, and is led by Professor Jürg Schmidli.