ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Data Assimilation is an integral tool to enable precise forecasts and becomes increasingly important to derive the values of uncertain parameters due to lack of observations. Numerical models of Earth system compartments are coupled in order to simulate physically consistent water and energy fluxes in the subsurface-landsurface-atmosphere system. Such model systems become increasingly important to analyze and understand the complex processes at boundaries of terrestrial compartments and interdependencies of states across these boundaries. As such, data assimilation for these coupled systems needs to be developed.

The dynamic behavior of the atmosphere is driven by processes on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. In a project run by scientists of the Heidelberg University, those parts of model systems which describe the fluid dynamics and the temperature evolution were investigated. The models are formulated in terms of the velocity, temperature, pressure, and density. The researchers employ a hierarchy of different physical models with an increasing degree of complexity. The task of predicting the evolution of tropical cyclones is a typical challenging example.