Julia Windmiller

Department Climate Physics
Group Tropical Cloud Observations
Position Group Leader
phone +49 40 41173-266
Email julia.windmiller@mpimet.mpg.de
Room B 431

Research interests

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is a crucial region on Earth where heavy precipitation occurs, and it's a fascinating aspect of our planet's climate that can be seen clearly from space (check out, for example, NASA Worldview). Satellite images reveal that the ITCZ changes significantly from one day to the next. I aim at gaining a deeper understanding of this changing pattern by using modern observation methods, advancements in scientific theories, and the latest climate models.

Publications

  • Windmiller, J. & Stevens, B. (2024). The inner life of the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society: early view. doi:10.1002/qj.4610
  • Windmiller, J., Bao, J., Sherwood, S., Schanzer, T. & Fuchs, D. (2023). Predicting convective downdrafts from updrafts and environmental conditions in a global storm resolving simulation. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15: e2022MS003048. doi:10.1029/2022MS003048 [supplementary-material][publisher-version]
  • Bao , J. & Windmiller, J. (2021). Impact of microphysics on tropical precipitation extremes in a global storm-resolving model. Geophysical Research Letters, 48: e2021GL094206. doi:10.1029/2021GL094206 [publisher-version][supplementary-material]
  • Beucler*, T., Leutwyler*, D. & Windmiller*, J. (2020). Quantifying convective aggregation using the tropical moist margin's length. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 12: e2020MS002092. doi:10.1029/2020MS002092 [publisher-version]
  • Stevens, B., Acquistapace, C., Hansen, A., Heinze, R., Klinger, C., Klocke, D., Schubotz, W., Windmiller, J., Adamidis, P., Arka, I., Barlakas, V., Biercamp, J., Brueck, M., Brune, S., Buehler, S., Burkhardt, U., Cioni, G., Costa-Surós, M., Crewell, S., Crueger, T., Deneke, H., Friederichs, P., Henken, C., Hohenegger, C., Jacob, M., Jakub, F., Kalthoff, N., Köhler, M., van Laar, T., Li, P., Lohnert, U., Macke, A., Madenach, N., Mayer, B., Nam, C., Naumann, A., Peters, K., Poll, S., Quaas, J., Röber, N., Rochetin, N., Rybka, H., Scheck, L., Schemann, V., Schnitt, S., Seifert, A., Senf, F., Shapkalijevski, M., Simmer, C., Singh, S., Sourdeval, O., Spickermann, D., Strandgren, J., Tessiot, O., Vercauteren, N., Vial, J., Voigt, A. & Zängl, G. (2020). The added value of large-eddy and storm-resolving models for simulating clouds and precipitation. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan, 98, 395-435. doi:10.2151/jmsj.2020-021 [publisher-version]
  • Windmiller, J. & Hohenegger, C. (2019). Convection on the edge. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 11, 3959-3972. doi:10.1029/2019MS001820 [supplementary-material][publisher-version]
  • Windmiller, J. & Craig, G. (2019). Universality in the spatial evolution of self-aggregation of tropical convection. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 76, 1677-1696. doi:10.1175/JAS-D-18-0129.1 [publisher-version][supplementary-material]
  • Craig, G. & Mack, J. (2013). A coarsening model for self-organization of tropical convection. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 118, 8761-8769. doi:10.1002/jgrd.50674 [publisher-version]

* The authors contributed equally to the corresponding study; their names are listed in alphabetical order.

How do the ups control the downs within deep convective clouds?

In convective storms, the air that goes down is almost as important as the air that goes up. These convective downdrafts influence the termination of updrafts, near surface air properties, surface winds. However, predicting downdrafts under specific atmospheric conditions is difficult because their properties depend on several interrelated processes.

 

Julia Windmiller becomes new group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

Dr. Julia Windmiller is the new scientific head of the group “Tropical Cloud Observations”. The group collects and uses observational data of tropical clouds and atmospheric convection. 

 

Radiosonde measurements of the intertropical convergence zone

On 27 June 2021, the research vessel RV SONNE set off under the cruise guidance of Prof. Peter Brandt from GEOMAR in Kiel and co-leader Dr. Julia Windmiller from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. The cruise under the name "Mooring Rescue" served to control and collect scientific measuring buoys in the tropical Atlantic by 15 ocean researchers from different institutions. The aim of the campaign was to investigate how processes on the scale of convective storms, and their interaction with the ocean, influence the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) in the Atlantic.

 

Julia Windmiller co-leads the atmospheric measurements on board RV SONNE

On 27 June 2021, after a 10-day quarantine of the participants, the RV SONNE will set off from Emden under the cruise guidance of Prof. Peter Brandt from GEOMAR in Kiel and co-leader Dr. Julia Windmiller from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M).