As part of PV-go-Smart project, several skycameras have been installed in the region of Upper Austria. In this paper we show differences and advantages of two skycams and their image qualities. Algorithms for the detection of clouds, cloud movement, and GHI forecasting have been developed and validated with ground observation at the Wels site. This work focusses on image quality issues related to short-term irradiance forecasting, in particular the influence of raindrops on forecast performance.

The Northeast Atlantic possesses an energetic and variable wind and wave climate which has a large potential for renewable energy extraction. The role of surface winds in the generation of ocean waves means that global atmospheric circulation patterns and wave climate characteristics are inherently connected. In this study we investigated the influence of large scale atmospheric oscillations on waves in the Northeast Atlantic using a high resolution wave projection dataset.

A comparison of forest damage with windstorm intensity in Finland suggests that the volume of forest damage follows approximately a power relation as a function of wind gust speed with a power of ~10. This tentative estimate holds for typical windstorms having mainly westerly winds and affecting large areas in southern and central parts of Finland. The estimate can be utilized when preparing impact-based predictions of windstorms.

The OpenIFS programme of ECMWF maintains a version of the ECMWF forecast model for use in education and research at universities, national meteorological services and other institutes. Application of OpenIFS as a training tool is wide ranging. The OpenIFS user meetings and training events demonstrate advanced and easy-to-use graphical tools and training technologies, e.g. OpenIFS and Metview “virtual machines”. This paper shows the education activity in the OpenIFS programme with some examples.

Changes in Polar jet circulation bring more dust from Sahara to Greenland. The poleward transport of warm, moist, and dust-laden air masses from the Sahara results in ice melting in Greenland. A meandering polar jet was discovered as responsible for both the emission and the poleward transport of dust. The emission has been linked to an intense Saharan cyclone that formed in April 2011, as a result of the intrusion of an upper-level trough emanating from the polar jet and orographic blocking.

Lakes affect local weather and climate. This influence should be taken into account in NWP models through parameterization. For the atmospheric simulation, global coverage of lake depth data is essential. To provide such data Global Lake Database (GLDB) has been created. More than 3 thousand in-situ lake depths all over the globe have been added. However over 83 % of newly added data have not been found on global ecosystem map ECOCLIMAP2.

A meso-scale ensemble system Aire Limitée Adaptation dynamique Développement InterNational - Limited Area Ensemble Forecasting (ALADIN-LAEF) based on the limited area model ALADIN has been developed in the framework of Regional Cooperation for Limited Area modelling in Central Europe (RC LACE) consortium, focusing on short range probabilistic forecasts and profiting from advanced multi-scale ALARO physics. Its main purpose is to provide probabilistic forecast on daily basis for the national weat

Since the 1990s, precipitation data with a high temporal resolution (1 minute) have been recorded by two independent observation networks in Hesse/Central Germany. In our paper we assess and compare the data quality of the two networks and identify connections between precipitation intensity and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Resulting differences between intense daily and sub-daily (15 minute) events underline the importance of enhancing short-duration precipitation measurements.

During recent years, Germany’s national meteorological service has significantly expanded the open access to its climate observations. To improve the interactive and user-friendly access to the data, a new data portal has been developed. The portal serves a variety of user requirements that result from the broad range of applications of DWD’s climate data. The focus of the recent developments was on improved access to German station data.

Low-level jets are frequently observed local wind maxima in the nocturnal boundary layer. This phenomenon occurs at hub heights of modern wind turbines and cause challenges for the wind power assessment. To characterize the dependencies of low-level jets, the micro-scale model HIRVAC2D is applied in the study. Results of several HIRVAC2D simulations are presented in order to deduce quantitatively the sensitivity of low-level jets to landuse parameters as well as meteorological quantities.

Raindrop shapes and fall velocities are presented for two high-wind/turbulent events. Results show strong gusts, directional wind shifts and/or inferred high turbulence intensity are correlated with reduced fall speeds, reaching values ~ 25–30 % less than the expected values, i.e. sub-terminal fall speeds. Significant percentage of asymmetric drops deviating from the most probable ax-isymmetric shapes was also detected during high turbulent intensities.

The present work deals with two well-known databases of hourly mean of solar irradiance that are derived from satellite imagery. The spatial consistency of the uncertainties of these databases is verified against measurements performed within a dense network of ground stations in The Netherlands from the Royal Meteorological Institute KNMI for the period 2014–2017. The obtained results are presented for both databases. And a discussion is proposed.

An atmospheric dispersion modelling system has been built to help protect Ireland during a Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak. Foot and Mouth Disease is a highly contagious virus of cloven‐hoofed animals (such as cows and pigs), and can be spread by the wind. An outbreak has the potential to inflict enormous economic losses. Knowing where the virus has come from and where it is likely to go to, it can aid emergency preparedness and eradication strategies.

In this study, we assess balancing effects between photovoltaics and wind energy. On average, the seasonal cycles complement each other in Germany as well as in Europe. The frequency of events with a risk of low electricity generation is analyzed. The results illustrate that the number of such events is reduced when offshore regions are included, or when a combined system of PV and wind energy is considered. A European-wide analysis also leads to a distinct reduction of such events.

Radiative transfer calculations in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate models require reliable information about aerosol concentration in the atmosphere, combined with data on aerosol optical properties. Data from the Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service (CAMS) and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) were implemented to the limited area, short-range HARMONIE-AROME NWP model.

The latitude-longitude grid is the most widely used global coordinate system for various purposes but its polar problems hinder its applications. Spherical multiple-cell (SMC) grid is developed to tackle the problems and uses unstructured technique and quad-tree like mesh refinement. It uses a fixed reference direction to define vector components near the pole for improved polar performance. It has been used in ocean surface wave models and possible applications in other models are explored.

This paper proposes a new generic method to define and detect wind gusts from high-resolution wind velocity data. The method describes any specific gust by an amplitude and period and allows the detection of individual gusts in time using wavelet-analysis. The result of a full gust analysis using this method yields a so-called characteristic gust distribution for the respective wind velocity data, which can serve as a direct link to the physical impact a particular gust has on e.g. an aircraft.

A spatialization of extreme daily temperatures (called ANASTASIA) had been produced on a 1 km regular grid over France. The production covers 1947 to present period. Validation shows good quality after the 1960s and temporal homogeneity at national scale from the 1970s. The ANASTASIA production is useful for temperature real-time monitoring and detection of heat and cold wave episodes over France.

This is a web-based toolbox created to support decision-making process by water managers in Spanish reservoirs. It provides a set of tools to explore hydrologic variability linked to climate variability and a precipitation/reservoir inflow seasonal forecast over Spain.

We have described a methodology for ensemble member’s weighting of operational seasonal forecasting systems based on an enhanced prediction of a driver of climate variability strongly affecting certain climate variables (e.g. temperature, precipitation) over a certain region. We have applied it to the North Atlantic Oscillation influence on the Iberian Peninsula winter precipitation. This approach is fully general and consequently applicable to any other SFS providing a skilful NAO signal.

In order to analyze the impact on long time series by the transition from manual to automatic sunshine duration devices, parallel measurements of German climate reference stations are used. The different measurement principles (glass sphere and photodiode) cause systematic differences between the observations. With a linear regression model (used to adjust the automatic measurements) we want to prevent breaks in long time series of daily sunshine duration.

The aim of the project is to build a device to measure atmospheric climate variables and to demonstrate and explain some weather phenomenon. The observations are stored in a database, the data archive and visualization of the data are accessible through a webpage. Students from other schools can get involved in the measurements with their own built devices and can upload their own measurements to the common database. We could create a weather map and a network of minimeteo stations for schools.

In the frame of MEDSCOPE project, a seasonal forecast empirical model for the Mediterranean is proposed. It uses a sub regions based set up, with different inputs for every area, from an initial set of global climate indices. However, is configurated to be able to easily incorporate other sources of information. Results show spatially consistent structure, and measurements of its skill shows it performs at the level (and better over some areas) of main dynamical models for seasonal forecasting.

Environmental education characteristically deal with observable natural phenomena. Atmospheric and marine whirls include a wide scale and some of them can be easily modeled even in a school laboratory which can be a great motivating force for the students to learn more about the physics of these phenomena. This paper demonstrates the introductory steps of the elaboration of a learning material about the atmospheric eddies and shows how can be connected the formal and non-formal teaching methods.

In May 2017, E-AMDAR service temporarily increased the number of aircraft data over France, especially from from planes ascending from or descending towards French airports. This was the opportunity to check the impact of these additional data on forecast skill scores in AROME-France model. An OSE was carried out by removing about 14 % of E-AMDAR data but a critical step before the OSE was to identify which data could be considered as supplementary. Results of the one-month OSE are discussed.

Meteorological observations are essential for the initialization of numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecast. A common observation preprocessing system (OPLACE) has been built up to facilitate the use of meteorological observations and deliver them in an appropriate format for data assimilation in the NWP system ALADIN. The OPLACE data sources, preprocessing steps and means to make preprocessed observations available are described.

Solar radiation is the second main important factors for plant growth after temperature. More precisely, PAR, which stands for Photosynthetically Active Radiation, is the portion of the solar spectrum that is efficient for photosynthesis. Due to the scarcity of ground measurements, researchers have developed methods to estimate this variable from satellite imagery. This paper compares several methods to assess satellite-derived PAR against measurements in the UK and in France.

In the German regional climate modeling project ReKliEs-De changes in temperature and precipitation indices are calculated from a multi model ensemble for the end of the 21st century. The results for the mitigation scenario RCP2.6 are compared to the results of the “business as usual” scenario RCP8.5. The increase of mean annual temperature and of the number of summer days will be around 3 times higher and in summer, the increase of dry days could be twice as high in RCP8.5 compared to RCP2.6.

The PannEx is a Regional Hydroclimate Project (RHP) of the GEWEX project. A gridded meteorological dataset is available for the PannEx region as part of the CarpatClim database. The objectives of this study are: (i) to compute (ET₀) for the CarpatClim dataset in the period 1961–2010 on the daily scale by using the Penman-Monteith method, and (ii) to compare ET₀ with the classical Thornthwaite estimates of PET.