Meteorology

Description

Our meteorological research delves into several different areas of weather, climate and applications. Our interests range from small-scale movements in the air to large-scale weather systems that affect much of the globe.

Many of us are interested in processes that take place in the boundary layer. This is a very active layer of air just above the Earth's surface up to a height of about one kilometre. In this layer, all the properties of the air vary both in time and space. What happens here controls much of the transport of, for example, heat, water vapour, greenhouse gases and pollutants between the surface and the atmosphere and also horizontally in the air layer. Events in the boundary layer therefore play a central role in our weather forecasts, climate simulations and have several practical applications in renewable energy, noise propagation and air quality.

In our research group we use a range of tools, from mast measurements and drones for in situ measurements to numerical simulations. We do these for several different types of regions and terrain types, although our main focus has been on terrain typical of Swedish conditions, such as forest, coast and inland sea.

Our research in extreme climate events involves studying processes ranging from local weather systems, such as our migrating low pressure systems, to large-scale planetary waves spanning thousands of kilometres. These can affect, for example, the occurrence of severe wind storms, heat waves and periods of prolonged cold. We study both the processes that control the occurrence of these extreme events and develop methods to predict them.

We also try to assess the impact of extreme weather events on different aspects of the biosphere, infrastructure and energy production. For these studies, we use a variety of methods, ranging from direct observations to machine learning and numerical modelling.