Description

Forecasting the development and motion of tropical cyclones (TCs) and their impact on the midlatitude flow presents a severe challenge for numerical weather prediction. A major roadblock to progress in this area is that horizontal scales from above several thousand to below one kilometre must be considered. Goal-oriented adaptive methods are a promising way to tackle such multi-scale problems. This approach allows e.g. for an automatic detection and refinement of the grid cells that contribute most stongly to the error in the forecasted TC position.

In collaboration with the Engineering Mathematics and Computing Lab (EMCL) we apply goal-oriented adaptive methods to TC-related problems. While our project partners at EMCL develop and implement adaptive techniques, we focus on defining and investigating idealised test cases related to tropical cyclones. Together we set up and evaluate adaptive model runs. The idealised problems investigated in this project are not only well-suited as test cases, but provide also a clearer view on selected processes than more realistic but hard to interpret full-physics model results. We investigated several idealised scenarios in which processes are at work that are important for the evolution and motion of real TCs. More information