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Cloud Physics and Traffic Meteorology

Head of the department: Dr. Thomas Gerz

Cloud growth and precipitation formation represent the state of the troposphere and thus the weather. Weather and precipitation as rain, hail and snow as well as wind and turbulence have important impact on aviation and ground transportation.

Aircraft wake vortices impose a hazard to aviation; the current safe separation standards between aircraft, however, are over-conservative under many weather conditions. Wind and turbulence often transport the vortices away from the flight corridor and quickly discreate their structure and strength.

The research topics include:

• Dynamics and precipitation formation of convective clouds, thunderstorms, lightning and the production and transport of trace gases
• Formation and decay of wake vortices
  Nowcasting for aviation and airport areas
• Dynamics of the tropopause
• Measurement methods with the polarisation Doppler radar
• Vector wind fields by bistatic radar measurements

The research instruments include

• POLDIRAD, a versatile polarisation Doppler radar, with bistatic extension
• Micro and mesoscale numerical simulation models