From SwissExperiment

SwissEx Science

SwissEx Science is a project (funded separately from the technology part of SwissEx) aimed at leveraging the new software and hardware products emerging from SwissEx to produce an integrated system to improve hazard warning forecasts. By integrating rapidly deployable sensors, permanent sensing networks, atmospheric forecast models and surface process models into a single system (built around a GSN core), the final system will provide a rapidly deployable hazard monitoring and forecast system. More details will follow as the project workplan is finalised during the first half of 2010. PI: Michael Lehning, SLF Project Manager: Andy Clifton, SLF (contact info)

Illgraben Mudflow (Image: A. Badoux, WSL)

Aim

To deliver a well-documented, reusable set of tools, data and methods to Swiss and International mountain weather research and hazard forecasting communities, focussing on wind and wind-driven precipitation.

Hypothesis

There are several hypotheses that we will investigate in the SwissEx Science module. These include

• Local wind fields (resolution of order 25 m) can be simulated using the atmospheric model 'ARPS', forced by coarse data (2-7 km resolution) and this process can be largely automated for known regions.
• Specific synoptic events (e.g. a NW storm) that would usually be thought of as progressing over time and displaying hysteresis can be instead broken down into a series of specific forcing conditions, and each time-step can be considered independent from the other. Or rather, there is no need to carry out a time-resolved simulation of a specific storm if a library of flow for different forcing conditions exists - the results from the library can be combined in the correct order to give the same results.
• High rsolution wind fields extending from the ground to the free-stream can be used to show where precipitation intensity is increased or decreased as a result of convergent or divergent wind fields.

Major components

There are several major parts to SwissEx Science, all building on the developments made as part of SwissEx (technology) - and mostly impossible without them. In some ways we're having to build the tools we'll be using to build the tools we'll need to do the science;

• Creating tools for collaboration and project management using the SwissEx infrastructure (mostly complete as of June 2010)
• Applying neural networks, filtering and other assimilation tools to downscale input data from NWP and weather stations to specific locations (see here; in progress, June 2010)
• Creating high resolution data sets from dense networks of observation stations for model validation, including Sensorscope stations, fixed stations and temporary tall masts (in progress, June 2010)
• Generating regional ‘climatological’ wind fields from the atmospheric model ARPS, validated against observations (planned mid / late 2010)
• Using these regional 'climatological' wind fields as inputs to create pseudo time-series wind fields, and for predicting preferential deposition of precipitation (planned late 2010, early 2011)
• Validating tools and writing up results (2011)

These projects will be focused around two particular sites; La Fouly, near Martigny in the SW of Switzerland, and Wannengrat, near Davos, SE Switzerland. These sites have been developed by EPFL (EFLUM) and SLF researchers and there is a large amount of validation data available at each site.

Deliverables

Besides investigating the hypotheses listed above, we will be looking to apply that new understanding to prove concepts for new warning products or services. For example

• High-resolution near-ground wind speed maps. With a coarse forecast as an input to our tools, we will model wind fields at high resolutions in the Davos and La Fouly regions. We can then either produce wind speed maps, or assess the wind speed at specific locations; roads, chair lifts or over ridge lines where snow transport might raise avalanche danger on lee slopes, and validate these using local measurements.
• Surface precipitation maps. Using the wind fields we generate, we will model spatial variations in precipitation in the Davos and La Fouly regions.

The difference

A common problem with modern research, particularly that using observational data and simulations, is that other workers in the field cannot easily follow on the same route or build on the results. Another problem is that of distributing the results.

SwissEx is built around several major tools that make communicating data and results much, much easier;

• This wiki, which simplifies communication and recording immensely
• GSN, a very capable database, and
• Sensor data and metadata storage, to help with the issue of data availability and transparency

Our goal is to document and integrate as much of what we do in SwissEx Science as possible.

This guiding principle runs from 'small' things like writing regular blog articles to documenting the project plan, as well as dumping data from all simulations into GSN and linking into them through the wiki; if you want to see a video of wind vectors or precipitation over a particular area of Davos or La Fouly, we'll try to do it. If you want to see the code I use to split logger files into blocks, it's somewhere here. And of course, we'll be using traditional methods like conference posters, presentations and peer-reviewed journal papers to make sure that we also have a body of reference information available as well.

Projects

Project	Page	Info	Owner
SwissEx Science	PMprojectb979c7f	The SwissEx Science workplan and task monitoring	Andy.clifton

• Click here to add a project.

Blog: SwissEx Science

An occasional blog about SwissEx Science Edited by Andy.clifton.

SwissEx Science Project Status

………posted 12 July 2010; read more

Fluelapass sonic deployment finished

We just retrieved the 3 sonic anemometers from the Fluelapass measurement mast. They were at 77, 54 and 36 m above ground at over 2,100 m a.s.l. from ………posted 9 June 2010; read more

Visually arresting charts

Just found some really interesting and attention-grabbing plots online at the Economist online - see their 'daily charts'. I guess plots don't always ………posted 3 June 2010; read more

Public blog posts

There is now a way to mark your posts as 'public'. Posts marked 'public' will be picked up and displayed in a public area of the wiki - a good way to ………posted 2 June 2010; read more

SLF team presentation

This afternoon I gave a short presentation to the SLF snow cover and micrometeorology team in Davos, introducing the major themes of SwissEx Science. ………posted 21 May 2010; read more

Blog tool

On the one hand, this is a test of the new blogging system I set up over the rainy weekend. On the other hand, it's a plea for all users of the SwissE………posted 17 May 2010; read more

SwissEx Science Workplan

The SwissEx Science workplan is taking shape. We're in the process of submitting a finalised version to CCES based on the project proposal that was ap………posted 15 May 2010; read more

Snow saltation code posted

After a few requests from colleagues, I've finally cleaned and documented the snow saltation code. It's available on the wiki at [[Science:Saltation_m………posted 7 May 2010; read more

Project management tool

We've spent a fair amount of time recently setting up a simple project management tool. We've integrated it with the wiki so that all of your informat………posted 15 April 2010; read more