Evaporation The fluid dynamics of snowmelt An important fraction of snowmelt is driven by the wind. Determining the melt rate is challenging in a landscape that is partially covered by snow patches that remain at the melting temperature, while surrounding land warms up as an effect of incoming solar solar radiation. In a new study, which
SLOCS Speeding up radiative transfer solvers with machine learning Machine learning provides great opportunities for accelerating the representation of physical processes in weather and climate models. Radiative transfer solvers, which deal with the transport of solar and thermal radiation, are often the most costly parametrization in models. Speeding them up is one of the main ambitions of SLOCS [https:
Clouds Details of the surface wind matter in tropical convection Tropical clouds play an important role in the energy balance of the earth. Clouds reflect solar radiation into space, but also absorb heat that is emitted from the surface of the earth. Clouds therefore play an important role in setting the global atmospheric temperature. In turn, the atmospheric temperature determines
Hydrology Mississippi’s moisture sources in present and future climate In our new study (led by PhD student Imme Benedict [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Imme_Benedict]), we have assessed the water budget of the Mississippi River Basin under present and future climate conditions. Our main aim was to find out where the precipitation originates from, and in particular whether
Weather Mega-heatwave amplification due to upstream drought In a new publication led by Dominik Schumacher [https://www.ugent.be/bw/environment/en/research/lhwm/staff/dominik_schumacher.htm] of Ghent University (DRY-2-DRY [http://www.dry2dry.org] project funded by ERC), we have quantified the impact of upstream drought on mega-heatwaves. With the help of satellite observations and
Evaporation Better hydrological cycle with high-resolution global models? To study the global hydrological cycle and its response to a changing climate, we rely on global climate models (GCMs) and global hydrological models (GHMs). In a new paper in HESS [https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-1779-2019], we have evaluated the benefits of increasing the resolution of a GCM and
Publications Surface warming leads to more clouds over temperate forest In a new paper [https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.3441] in Quarterly Journal of Royal Meteorological Society, we present a potential mechanism to explain the observed enhanced cloud formation over Western European forests [https://chiel.ghost.io/2017/01/20/clouds/], such as in Les Landes,
Solar energy Project on solar energy and electricity grid management granted Our project Every ray counts has been granted in the Industrial Doctorates [https://www.nwo.nl/actueel/nieuws/2018/07/zestien-industrial-doctorates-aan-de-slag-in-bedrijfsleven.html] call from NWO [https://www.nwo.nl]. In this project, our group at Wageningen University and Research [https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Chair-groups/Environmental-Sciences/Meteorology-and-Air-Quality-Group.htm] and
Clouds Three new papers on land-atmosphere interactions We have published three new papers on land-atmosphere interactions, and the soil moisture-precipitation feedback. The first paper Land-Atmosphere Interactions: The LoCo Perspective [https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0001.1] is published in BAMS, the American Meteorological Society's flagship journal. The paper presents an overview of
Weather Global moisture transport in ERA5 The new ECMWF ERA5 [https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5] data shows the global moisture transport at an unprecedented detail level. For my atmospheric dynamics class, I have downloaded a year of data at the 850 hPa level (just above the boundary layer) and composed a movie.
MicroHH MicroHH reference paper published The reference paper of MicroHH [https://chiel.ghost.io/microhh/] is accepted as a full contribution to Geoscientific Model Development [https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/10/3145/2017/]. This paper describes the final result of several years of model development: MicroHH 1.0. The short summary on the GMD [http://www.
Coding The beauty of containers in C++11 Containers for storing data are one of many great features of the C++ Standard Library [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B_Standard_Library]. Despite their advantages, to initialize them, and to loop over them was not always easy. Fortunately, the C++11 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%
Publications Clouds can enhance photosynthesis and evapotranspiration Clouds reflect incoming solar radiation back into space, but also increase the amount of diffuse radiation that reaches the land surface. Our new study [http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JHM-D-16-0279.1] (lead author Xabier Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia) shows that thin clouds are beneficial for CO2 assimilation and evapotranspiration, due to
Publications MicroHH discussion paper online The reference paper of MicroHH [https://chiel.ghost.io/microhh/] is available as a discussion paper on the website of Geoscientific Model Development [http://www.geosci-model-dev-discuss.net/gmd-2017-41/#discussion]. This paper describes the final result of several years of model development: MicroHH 1.0. The short summary on the GMD
Coding How (not) to copy a NumPy array The Python code below has puzzled me for a while. It shows the initialization of NumPy array a and three examples of copy assignment stored in b, c, and d. import numpy as np a = np.arange(3,5) #a = [3, 4] b = a c = a[:] d = a.copy() print(
Publications More clouds over Western European forests Our new article [http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14065] in Nature Communications (lead author Ryan Teuling) presents observational proof of enhanced cloud formation over Western European forests. The related press release of Wageningen University can be found here (in Dutch) [https://www.wur.nl/nl/nieuws/Bossen-bevorderen-wolkenvorming.htm]. The sketch
