Priority Programme “Polarimetric Radar Observations meet Atmospheric Modelling (PROM) – Fusion of Radar Polarimetry and Numerical Atmospheric Modelling Towards an Improved Understanding of Cloud and Precipitation Processes” (SPP 2115)
Deadline: 14. Mai 2021
Cloud and precipitation processes are the main source of uncertainties in weather prediction and climate change projections since decades. A major part of these uncertainties can be attributed to missing observations suitable to challenge the representation of cloud and precipitation processes in atmospheric models. Since 2015 the whole atmosphere over Germany is monitored by 17 state-of-the-art polarimetric Doppler weather radars, which provide every five minutes 3D information on the liquid and frozen precipitating particles and their movements on a sub-kilometer resolution, which is also approached by the atmospheric models for weather prediction and climate studies. Data assimilation merges observations and models for state estimation as a requisite for prediction and can be considered as a smart interpolation between observations while exploiting the physical consistency of atmospheric models as mathematical constraints. However, considerable knowledge gaps exist both in radar polarimetry and atmospheric models, which impede the full exploitation of the triangle radar polarimetry – atmospheric models – data assimilation.
Thus, the Priority Programme builds upon the hypothesis that a coordinated effort in exploiting the synergy of polarimetric radar observations and atmospheric models will
- overcome current obstacles, which hinder the fusion of polarimetric radar observations and atmospheric models via data assimilation on scales which govern precipitating weather systems,
- provide a most effective research approach to cloud- and precipitation processes, that enables a thorough evaluation and improvement of parameterisations of moist processes in atmospheric models,
- allow for new insights into the atmospheric energy budget and the cycling between its different forms in moist atmospheric processes, and
- lead to innovations of our capabilities to predict convective cloud development and thunderstorms.
Applicants must be registered in by 1 May 2021 to submit a proposal under this call.
