GEO Week & Ministerial Summit 2023

High-impact weather events (HIWEs) strongly affect society with devastating effects on agriculture, infrastructures, and human lives. This is particularly true in regions of the world which lack up-to-date and dense weather observational networks, powerful computational tools, and efficient early warning systems, such as sub-Saharan Africa. HIWEs are often characterized by relatively small-scale and complex atmospheric dynamical features, which make them hard to forecast with mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. The use of cloud-resolving NWP configurations (with horizontal grid spacing 1-5 km) for operational and research-oriented activities has proven to be effective in producing more skillful forecasts, benefiting the entire society. High-resolution numerical models can also be employed in idealized experiments to understand relevant atmospheric processes. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and the Regional Climate Model (RegCM) system are two state-of-the-art atmospheric models capable of cloud-resolving configurations. The aim of this advanced school is to train a diverse group of young motivated researchers in using high-resolution NWP models for either research-oriented or applied activities.

Topics

1. The first part of the training will be composed of a set of online lectures to introduce the numerical models. The fundamental principles of atmospheric numerical modeling will be covered including (and not limited to):

   • equations of motion
   • numerical schemes
   • parameterizations
   • choice of the numerical grid

2. The second part will be organized in presence. It will consist of five days of lectures and hands-on sessions in which two groups will focus on the setup and running of numerical simulations either with WRF or with RegCM. The school will cover:

   • the introduction to the models' architecture
   • the explanation of how the relevant model parameters can be modified to perform either a realistic or an idealized simulation
   • hands-on session covering all steps needed to perform a simulation from the beginning to the end
   • examples of post-processing analyses using different tools (e.g. CDO, Python, Ferret)

Speakers

F. CASSOLA*, ARPAL, Italy (remote)
F. DESBIOLLES, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
G. GIULIANI, ICTP, Italy
S. KRISHNAKUMAR, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
A. N. MERONI, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
A. PARODI*, CIMA Research Foundation, Italy (remote)
T. R. MAISHA*, SAWS, South Africa (remote)
R. R. MUITA, Kenya Meteorological Department, Kenya
A. TOMPKINS, ICTP, Italy
**to be confirmed

TEMBO Africa: The work leading to these results has received funding from the European Horizon Europe Programme (2021-2027) under grant agreement n° 101086209.

Grants: A limited number of grants are available to support the attendance of selected participants, with priority given to participants from developing countries. There is no registration fee.

Organizer(s)

Omololu AKIN-OJO (ICTP-EAIFR), Fabien DESBIOLLES (University of Milano - Bicocca, Italy), Sujith KRISHNAKUMAR (University of Milano-Bicocca), Thizwilondi R. MAISHA (South African Weather Service), Agostino Niyonkuru MERONI (University of Milano-Bicocca), Richard Rukwaro MUITA (Institute for Meteorological Training and ResearchResearch and Development Division, Kenya), Nick VAN DE GIESEN (Technical University of Delft), ICTP Scientific Contact: Adrian Tompkins (ICTP)

Cosponsor(s)

Delft University of Technology, TEMBO Africa, EAIFR, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

Secretary

Monica Petronela Ancuta, Viktoriya Lvova, Adriana Pinto