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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.).