Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology: Towards small scale processes in large scale climate models

This visualisation illustrates the vision to simulate small-scale processes explicitly on a global scale, thus reducing the need for parametrisations in climate models. The two different data sets used for the scientific visualisations are results of simulations the ICON model — the Icosahedral Nonhydrostatic Weather and Climate Model jointly developed by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and Germany's National Meteorological Service Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD).

Credit: Niklas Röber, Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ)

The visualisation begins with a vertical profile across Germany for a regional high resolution atmospheric simulation carried out within the project HD(CP)². The particularly high horizontal resolution of 150 m allows for the explicit simulation of clouds and precipitation, which so far only was feasible using more generic models (LES-models) on smaller domains. The visualisation shows the cloud water and cloud ice volume. A view from the top onto the simulation domain illustrates the dynamical meteorological situation on May 29, 2019, a day with particularly severe weather.

The second part of the animation features a high-resolution global ICON simulation carried out within the DYAMOND project. With a spatial model resolution of 2.5 km, the visualisation illustrates the potential of the model to achieve a realistic cloud distribution and patterns. The final part demonstrates the utility of the data analysis and visualization application “ParaView” to achieve photo-realistically rendered scientific visualisations.

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Towards small scale processes in large scale climate models — 3D visualisation of clouds