ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Clouds and precipitation are the major source of uncertainty in numerical predictions of weather and climate. A common analysis of polarimetric radar observations and synthetic radar data from numerical simulations provides new methods to evaluate models. Using the Terrestrial Systems Modeling Platform, researchers conducted ensemble simulations for multiple summertime storms over north-western Germany. The simulated cloud processes were compared in the radar space using a forward operator with the measurements from X-band polarimetric radars. In addition, sensitivity studies were conducted using different background aerosol states and land cover types in the model to better understand land-aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions.

To avoid dangerous climate change, we have to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases radically. This requires – among other measures – an increase of renewable sources of energy like solar and wind. In 2019, already a quarter of Germanys electricity demand has been met by wind power. In order to increase this share, one has to develop sites in hilly terrain. High resolution models are required to assess the suitability of candidate sites with respect to turbulence intensity, power production and variability. This project supports the development of the test-site WINSENT, which is located on the Swabian Alp near Stuttgart.