Dept. of Geosciences Colloquium: Recent progress and challenges in Numerical Weather Predictions (NWP)

​Abstract:

During the last decades, substantial progress in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) modelling and the description of physical processes have been achieved. Convection-permitting regional models with resolutions of 3 to 1 km are standard in all developed national meteorological services. Moore's Law (1965) states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years, though the cost of computers is halved.  As doubling model resolution requires 2^3 computer resources, if the model scales ideally, the model resolution needs to double every 6 years. As more levels are added and more processes are explicitly solved, 10 years may be more realistic. However, several tests to increase resolutions from the current ~2 km to ~0.5 km did not improve substantially the forecast quality. The efforts to enhance the ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic (ICON) model resolution and performance within the Consortium for Small-scale Modelling (COSMO) will be presented.

Event Organizer: Dr. Roy Barkan