3rd Young Scientists Workshop / PANDOWAE Winter School 8-10 February 2010, Munich, Germany
The Young Scientists who work within the framework of the PANDOWAE Project as well as several Ph.D. students who work on topic closely related to PANDOWAE have organized a workshop for the third time. After the Workshops in Karlsruhe and Mainz, this workshop's venue was Munich. Programme points included the presentation and discussion of preliminary results by the young scientists among each other.
On Monday, Carmen Köhler (DWD) introduced her approach to improving the microphysics in DWD's model after convincingly demonstrating that there is ample room for improvement. Julia Keller (KIT) presented her ideas on using eddy kinetic energy to track downstream development effects of the extratropical transition of tropical cyclones. Doris Anwender (KIT) presented her work at Météo France on the effects of assimilating water vapor data detected by the IASI instrument on improving forecasts of extratropical transition. Christian Grams (KIT) has presented his progress using potential vorticity inversion to study the interaction of extratropical cyclones on the mid-latitude flow. Pieter Groenemeijer (LMU) has presented his work on implementing the stochastic scheme for deep convection by Plant and Craig in the mesoscale COSMO model. Dr. Christian Keil (LMU) was invited by the PANDOWAE Young scientists to present his work on ensemble forecasting and the impact of assimilating radar data in different weather regimes.
On Tuesday morning, the young scientists moved to DLR's Insitute of Atmospheric Physics. Here, Prof. Schumann welcomed the group and presented both an overview of the institute's core activities and a topic on which this institute and Prof. Schumann have develop a high level of expertise, the effects of high cirrus clouds on radiation. The professor's introduction was followed by a presentation by Marc Rautenhaus who introduced his work on developing a system that enables researchers to remotely access the latest and most relevant meteorological (forecast) data during measurement campaigns. Subsequently the group received a small tour around some of DLR's facilities and were allowed to view the new HALO research aircraft, while being informed about the many new possibilities the aircraft has to offer as well as several practical issues that need to be dealt with when operating such an aircraft for scientific purposes.
After lunch, the Young scientists moved back to the LMU where Prof. George Craig introduced the basics of using stochastic parameterization schemes in numerical weather prediction models. He introduced a number of important prerequisites for using such schemes, such as scale separation, and showed the similarities between traditional statistical physics and the approach taken in stochastic parametrization schemes.
On Wednesday, the young scientists moved over to the LMU 's Sprachraum division, who organized a course on how give good oral presentations. After the participants lost their initial sceptical attitude, the truly interactive workshop was very useful as it focused on several aspects of presenting. Most partcipants expressed afterwards that they had learned several new things about their own way of presenting and how to further improve it.
After the presentation training, a brief final discussion concluded the PANDOWAE Winter School 2010.
We want to thank the Graduate Center of the LMU for enabling us to organize this constructive and useful workshop, the Meteorological Institute (Physics Department) of the LMU and the DLR for its hospitatily, and the LMU's Sprachraum for organizing the presentation training.
The participants of the PANDOWAE Winter School 2010 in front of the new HALO research aircraft at DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen.