NETWORK & COOPERATION

“Exploiting synergies between EarthCARE and ground-based supersites”
– Kim Andreas Weiss
ECMWF Supervisor: Mark Fielding (Earth System Modelling Section, in the Physical Processes Team, led by Richard Forbes)
CESOC Mentor: and Ulrich Löhnert (University of Cologne)

The aim of this project is to improve the current understanding of clouds and precipitation, and their representation in models. For this purpose, observational data from the Europewide ACTRIS-network, comprising ground-based radars and lidars, will be combined with the radar and lidar measurement devices of the EarthCARE satellite launched in May 2024.

This project seeks to gain new insights and improve our knowledge of clouds and precipitation and their impacts within the atmosphere, and contribute to new developments of the microphysics scheme of the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and thereby to a better representation within numerical weather prediction and climate models.

Finished my master’s degree in Earth and Climate System Sciences in 05/2024 at University of Hohenheim in cooperation with Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (courses + master thesis) with my thesis focusing on “Atmospheric Rivers” affecting France in regard to their moisture sources and their impacts.
Within my master’s degree I also did a 6-month Erasmus traineeship at the National Observatory of Athens focusing on the city-scale air pollution modelling.

“Interfacing with Digital Twins”
– Sandra Klewinghaus
ECMWF Supervisor: Estíbaliz Gascón, in cooperation with the Evaluation Section (FSD), in the Forecasts Verification and Observation Monitoring Team, led by Thomas Haiden
CESOC Mentor: Vera Schemann (University of Cologne)

In my project, we will evaluate case studies of extreme weather events using high-resolution simulations from the DestinE Extremes Digital Twin. The aim is to assess the accuracy of the forecasts by comparing them to observations and simulations from the Global-to-Regional-ICON project. To do so, we will apply methods for uncertainty quantification and develop new diagnostics. The long-term goal is to suggest and test potential improvements to the model and translate the global weather information into regional information useful for decision-making.

Before starting this project, I just finished my Master’s at the TU Darmstadt in interdisciplinary Mathematics. I specialized in Numerics of partial differential equations and did my Master’s thesis in meteorology, extending the dynamical core of a LES model in terrain-following coordinates. Next to my studies I had several side jobs to apply my knowledge from Mathematics and Meteorology by developing e.g. a radar composite for Germany.

“Investigate GNSS-R observation usage over land surface”
– Eleni Kalogeraki
ECMWF Supervisor: Patricia de Rosnay (Earth System Assimilation Section, in the Coupled Assimilation Team)
CESOC Mentor: Jürgen Kusche (University of Bonn)

Focussing on leveraging GNSS Reflectometry (GNSS-R) data to improve the representation of land surface conditions, the goal is to advance the land data assimilation system by incorporating GNSS-R soil moisture observations and assessing their impact on numerical weather prediction (NWP), through comparison with existing soil moisture products used at ECMWF, such as SMOS and ASCAT.

My work involves implementing GNSS-R data assimilation in the offline land system, running dedicated experiments, and evaluating the influence on soil moisture estimates and weather forecasts. The expected outcomes include improved soil moisture representation and potentially enhanced NWP accuracy. A comparative analysis with existing datasets (SMOS, ASCAT) will help assess the added value of GNSS-R data. The project’s findings will be shared through technical reports, contributing to the development of data assimilation techniques and operational forecasting capabilities at ECMWF.

Originally from Crete, Greece, I studied Physics at the University of Crete, specialising in environmental and atmospheric physics. I continued with a Master’s in Environmental Engineering at the same university, applying supervised machine learning algorithms to predict fire risk in Greece. Before starting this fellowship, I was a trainee at EUMETSAT’s Ocean Colour Team in Darmstadt, where I worked with the ThoMaS toolkit to generate matchups between in situ and satellite observations and contributed to the validation of Sentinel-3 Ocean Colour products.

“Discerning the effect of the Land Data Assimilation System on flood forecasting”
– Francesca Covella
ECMWF Supervisor: Jasper Denissen (Land Modelling Team, led by Christoph Rüdiger), in cooperation with the Coupled Assimilation Team, led by Patricia de Rosnay, and the Hydrological Monitoring and Forecasting Team (FSD), led by Christel Prudhomme
CESOC Mentor: Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

Projections indicate a continued increase in river flood hazards in western and central Europe, hence there is a strong need to improve representation of hydrological cycle in the ECMWF numerical weather prediction model and in general. 

This project aims at setting up and performing data denial and forecast experiments with the coupled ECLand-CaMaFlood system to identify the impact of observations and data assimilation (DA) on flood forecasting. In particular we are interested in quantifying the impact of snow DA and soil moisture and screen level variables DA, which are designed to add or remove water from the system to match the observation model, on hydrology, and specifically on river discharge.

The goal is to further try and develop the model to improve the representation water related variables or of the hydrodynamic model component.

The project is carried out by Francesca Covella, who received her MEng in Aeronautical Engineering (First Class Honor) from Imperial College London in 2022, with a master thesis on “Uncertainty propagation for nonlinear dynamics: A polynomial optimization approach”. She then worked for two years as System Engineer in Spacecraft Operations, as contractor for ESA/ESOC. Her passions include music, sport, and learning about different cultures.

“Modelling water in Arctic clouds”
– Luise Schulte
ECMWF Supervisor: Richard Forbes, Linus Magnusson, Jonathan Day
CESOC Mentor: Susanne Crewell (University of Cologne)

The Arctic is particularly sensitive to climate change, and clouds (especially liquid-containing clouds) play a key role in the Arctic climate system by emitting and reflecting radiation. Although improvements have been made in recent years, it is still difficult to represent Arctic mixed-phase clouds in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. In this project, the representation of clouds in the ECMWF IFS model will be investigated using observational data from the exceptional one-year ice drift campaign MOSAiC (2019-2020). The goal is to further develop the model to improve the representation of clouds in the Arctic.

The project is carried out by Luise Schulte, who received her master’s degree in physics at Goethe University Frankfurt with a modelling case study of cloud edge effects of Arctic Mixed-phase clouds using the ICON model in the Atmospheric Physics and Climate Group.

“Modelling the regional water cycle and temperature in urbanised areas”
– Florentine Weber
ECMWF Supervisor: Gianpaolo Balsamo, Linus Magnusson
CESOC mentor: tba

According to UN predicitons, two-thirds of the world’s population will be living in urban areas by 2025. This means that cities will play an increasingly important role in climate models and weather forecasts. However, the current representation of cities in these models is still not adequate. To address this challenge, our project focuses on high-resolution modelling of the regional water cycle and temperature in urbanised areas.

Our selected fellow, Florentine Weber, will investigate this topic in collaboration with the CESOC project Disentangling the Role of Land Use and Water Management (DETECT). With a PhD in climate physics from the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures and The University of Sheffield in the UK, Florentine has conducted research on the drying of the atmosphere over land. As a highly engaged member of the scientific community, she serves as a representative for early career researchers in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) Hydrological Science Division. Florentine’s background in science communication makes her an asset to the German Physical Society (DPG), where she works as a project coordinator to support the organisation’s efforts.

“Use of altimeter measurements in a coupled data assimilation system”
– Katerina Anesiadou
ECMWF Supervisor: Sean Healy, Patricia de Rosnay
CESOC Mentor: Jürgen Kusche (University of Bonn)

Satellite altimeters, currently used in ocean and wave data assimilation, provide global coverage of sea-surface height and ocean wave height. Beyond that, they could provide additional information on the atmospheric state. Until now, this information is treated as “corrections” and is not put to further use. Within this fellowship, the altimeter measurements will be incorporated in a coupled data assimilation system, by using the ground-based GNSS Zenith Total Delay assimilation methodology, in order to improve the exploitation of the available observations and investigate the potential of extracting atmospheric information.

Katerina is a physicist (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece) with a MSc in Environmental Physics (University of Bremen, Germany). After her studies she worked as a research assistant in a group of traffic engineers (Joint Research Centre, Italy) and recently completed a research fellowship related to the nowcasting of extreme weather events (University of Padua, Italy).

“Meteorological effects of atmospheric composition”
– Paolo Andreozzi
ECMWF Supervisor: Robin Hogan, Richard Forbes
CESOC Mentor: Birger Bohn (Research Centre Jülich), Ulrich Löhnert (University of Cologne)

Aerosols and their composition are not only relevant for air quality but they also change radiation and initiate cloud formation. Thus, they play an important role for the climate. This project aims at improving the operational representation of prognostic aerosols keeping the computational costs as low as possible. By means of ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System including atmospheric composition (IFS-COMPO) the effects of day-to-day variations of two aerosol species on the forecast will be studied. CESOC will contribute with expertise on chemistry and observation of aerosols at the research facilities in Jülich.

Paolo Andreozzi started at the ECMWF in April having recently graduated at the University of Hamburg with a MSc thesis on the properties of Kelvin wave errors in the ECMWF deterministic forecasts.