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Nowadays, thunderstorms and lightning strikes have also come to the forefront of public interest as they cause significant damage, injuries, and forest fires. Due to the lack of knowledge in the public consciousness, many myths have developed around them. Our research aims to determine what can be taught in high schools about lightning strikes, the reduction of their damages, and lightning protection. We created some teaching resources and would like to share our teaching experiences.

We study the flow in the lower atmosphere in response to a sudden surface cooling. Our numerical approach aims to resolve all relevant scales of the flow but only along a vertical column. Complex turbulent motions are modeled by simple random mappings. We show that the numerical model accurately captures some relevant features of near-surface turbulent winds and temperature fluctuations. The model offers new opportunities for atmospheric chemistry and polar boundary layer application cases.

There has been developed for Central America downscaled climate change scenarios using the same methodology, that allows a joint analysis for the whole region. The high number of simulations improves the situation prior to the start of the action, where each country had a limited number of projections that differed in terms of background information, methodology and resolution. A web based viewer allows consultations and download on 37 different climatic variables and derived indices.

The interdisciplinary research project WEXICOM funded by the German weather service (DWD) conducted focus group discussions and semi-structured expert interviews with members of road maintenance services in Germany. This paper focuses on the needs and demands practitioners of road maintenance services have in regard to a prospective introduction of impact-based forecasts and warnings and how weather forecasts are used at the moment.

The energy exchanged during condensation/evaporation processes is an important driving force of tropical cumulus convection. We found theoretically, and confirmed in computer simulations, that the rate of condensation/evaporation can be expressed as a linear function of the cloud vertical velocity. This finding suggests a new approach to calculate cloud energy transformations in numerical weather prediction models.

Cities are particularly affected by climate change. Adaptation strategies require data, models and scenario analyses. This paper characterizes the urban microclimate of a 16 ha study area in Cologne based on a network of 33 calibrated and validated sensors. Using statistical analyses, tests and pairwise comparisons, significant microclimatic differences were identified between a park, courtyard, avenue and narrow street. The data will be used in future to validate an ENVI-met microclimate model.