Scientists are working on ways to improve the forecasting of extreme weather events. £11 million funding is being invested by the Met Office and the Natural Environment Research Council, including the funding of five projects that will each investigate key scientific questions.
Extreme weather events include storms, floods, droughts and extreme temperatures. According to the Met Office, the number and severity of some types of extreme weather event are increasing, impacting our health, infrastructure and causing huge disruption.
Climate change is contributing to these increases, so the need for accurate weather forecasts and climate projections is only going to increase as the climate continues to change.
Weather and climate models are critically important to our ability to manage the impacts of hazardous weather, helping to inform decisions on adaptation to climate change and providing early warning of extreme weather events.
The five projects, led by scientists at the universities of Exeter, Leeds, Manchester, Reading, Imperial College London and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, will focus on improving our understanding of air and cloud movements called atmospheric turbulence, caused by fluctuations of wind, temperature and humidity.
Specifically, they will improve understanding of turbulent processes, creating modelling in detail at a scale of kms and sub-kms.
Collectively the projects will:
These projects will link with the Met Office’s Wessex Convection Experiment (WesCon), which will collect observations of summer convection, a process that drives cloud formation and can produce heavy rainfall and thunderstorms.
Stephen Belcher, Chief of Science and Technology at the Met Office said:
“As our climate changes and we see more frequent spells of severe weather, it is crucial that we constantly evolve and innovate to provide the most accurate forecasts and climate projections possible. Providing better forecasts that help the UK to build in resilience to our evolving climate is a priority for the Met Office. The science of representing turbulence in our weather and climate models is a fundamental and exciting challenge, it is fantastic to form a partnership with NERC to make progress in this area.”
Duncan Wingham, Executive Chair of the Natural Environment Research Council, said:
“Extreme weather is becoming more common due to the effects of climate change. Predicting both the scale and location of these events is a key challenge as they increasingly impact lives, homes and infrastructure.
“We are investing in programmes that improve our understanding of the atmospheric turbulence, so we can strengthen our monitoring and modelling tools.”
Further Information:
WOEST
Dr Ryan Neely, University of Leeds
Observational campaign that supplements and complements WesCon; targets e.g. precipitating convective cores; eddy dissipation rate; the pre-convective environment and its variability
CLOUDYTIME
Professor Thorwald Stein, University of Reading
Compare modelled turbulence in UM and LFRic with a new model (EPIC); investigate role of turbulence-microphysics coupling; role of lateral boundary conditions; predictability under different mesoscale conditions.
UMBRELLA
Dr Andrew Ross, University of Leeds
Evaluate current (and future) Met Office BL schemes in grey-zone; inclusion of effects of heterogeneity and topography in future schemes.
HIFI
Dr George Efstathiou, University of Exeter
Develop a dynamically adjusting length scale for closing turbulence models in the UM and LFRic. Targets the BL grey-zone with promising outcomes.
MORPH
Professor Bob Plant, University of Reading
Contributes to inclusion of stochastic and scale-aware behaviour in CoMorph, targeting km scales; steps towards unification between mass-flux and turbulence schemes