CRIME

Cloud Representation, IMprovement and Evaluation in the HARMONIE model

An accurate description of clouds in weather and climate models is crucial as they have a large impact on a wide variety of important model (based) output. For example fog, cloud base height and icy road conditions, all part of the KNMI warning task, are strongly influenced by clouds. The aim of this project is to improve the evaluation and representation of clouds in the high resolution HARMONIE weather and climate model. For this purpose, data and expertise of three research areas is brought together: atmospheric modelling, satellite observations, and ground-based remote sensing.

Figure: Sophisticated ground-base remote sensing observations in Cabauw and MSG cloud products (shown on the left hand side) are used to improve the evaluation of Harmonie cloud products (shown in the center). Output from the very high resolution DALES model (shown on the right hand side) is used to develop an improved cloud scheme cloud for Harmonie.