Atmosperic Dynamics
Head of the department: Prof. Dr. Robert Sausen
The department "Atmospheric Dynamics" studies the atmospheric motion and the transport of energy and mass within the atmosphere. It employs several numerical simulation models and uses a diversity of atmospheric data sets. The department has two main research topics: Global and mesoscale modelling. Additionally, a group manages and operates the IT structure of the institute.
Current research topics include:
- global transport of tracers
- convection
- coupled dynamical and chemical processes in the global atmosphere
- traffic and climate
- aerosols
- down-scaling of global climate model results to regional scales
- combination of remote sensing data with numerical simulations
- studies concerning water vapour, ice-supersaturated regions, and cirrus clouds
- sound propagation in an inhomogeneous atmosphere.
The department uses the following simulation models:
- global models, in particular the coupled dynamics-chemistry model ECHAM/CHEM
- several mesoscale models (e.g. MESOSCOP, MM5, REWIH3D)
- numerical models for simulation of sound propagation in an inhomogeneous atmosphere (AKUMET, AKU3D).
The department evaluates meteorological datasets from a variety of sources (e.g. ECMWF-Analyses, satellite data products, etc.). It uses specific statistical methods for data analysis (e.g. cluster analysis, fingerprint technique, etc.).