COPS Update, April 2009

This update provides a synopsis of recent COPS activities from Volker Wulfmeyer, COPS ISSC Chair, Direktor Institut fuer Physik und Meteorologie (IPM) Universitaet Hohenheim Garbenstr, Stuttgart, Germany.

Data Availability

The following databases have repositories of COPS data that may be of interest.

World Data Center for Climate (WDCC)

Extensive work has been performed to extend the COPS database at WDCC with comprehensive background information. You can easily scroll through the list of available data with different search priorities. Special thanks to Claudia Wunram for this excellent work.

Joint D-PHASE-COPS (JDC) Data Set

A new data set—Joint D-PHASE-COPS (JDC)—will soon become available. This data set includes all data that have been processed and produced during the third phase of the DFG Priority Program. The corresponding data streams include:

The 2007 European GTS and non-GTS surface data, the most detailed surface station data set collected so far in Europe. The data set also includes harmonized precipitation data with different accumulation times. Thanks to Manfred Dorninger, Theresa Gorgas, and Thomas Schwitalla for their excellent work realizing this key data set. An announcement will be sent out soon after these data are loaded.
VERA analyses, also covering the whole time period of 2007. Special acknowledgement to the University of Vienna for providing these unique data for process and model verification studies. These data will be made available in May 2009.
The DWD reanalysis project. The DWD team delivered excellent contributions to COPS.

European Radar Network for COPS, D-PHASE, and GOP PIs

DWD radar data are available via the GOP website.
Meteo Swiss radar data are available via the University of Hohenheim.
Meteo France data will become available soon via the University of Hohenheim, too. This is currently in progress.

Please contact Thomas Schwitalla for details on Meteo Swiss and Meteo France radar data.

AMF Data

Quicklooks of the AMF instruments are now available through the "View Plots" links on the Data Plots and Baseline Instruments page. To download these datastreams, go to the respective instrument link in the table and select "Build an Order" on the instrument page. The instrument pages contain detailed information about the netCDF data formats in the Data Object Design Files links.

The AMF data set is very impressive. All data identified with the abbreviation FKB are relevant. Extensive scientific applications are possible due to the high quality and the extraordinary synergy of data. Access to the data is straightforward.

AMF Products

ARM has a variety of value-added products (VAPs) available; look for FKB under the sites designation.
Cloudnet retrievals (PIs: Ewan O'Connor, Robin Hogan).
LWC and PWC retrievals: (PI: Ulrich Loehnert).
MWR Retrievals of Cloud Liquid Water and Water Vapor (PI: Dave Turner).
Integrated Profiling Technique (IPT) retrievals (PI: Ulrich Loehnert).
AOT (PI: Dave Turner).

Current Status of Scientific Work

See Volker Wulfmeyer's presentation from the 2009 ARM Science Team Meeting for an overview of recent scientific developments with some highlights.

A more detailed overview will be given during the ICAM 2009 conference with many contributions from COPS PIs.

The recent ARM Science Team Meeting contained several contributions to COPS research, including these selected abstracts:

Loehnert, U., Crewell, S., Turner, D., and Ebell, K.: Advances in Multi-instrument Liquid Cloud Property Retrievals: New Synergies and Application
Hogan, R.: Evaluating Model Skill: What Is the Half-life of a Cloud-fraction Forecast?
Luke, E., Giangrande, S., and Kollias, P.: Long-term Vertical Air Velocity and Precipitation Parameter Retrievals in Rainfall from 95-GHz Doppler Radar Spectra.
Ayers, J., Minnis, P., Palikonda, R., Yost, C., Spangenberg, D., Chang, F., and Nguyen, L.: Comparison of Cloud Properties Derived from MSG SEVIRI and ARM Mobile Facility Observations.
Wulfmeyer, V., Aoshima, F., Behrendt, A., Pal, S., Weckwerth, T., and Hagen, M.: Studies of Shallow and Organized Convection with Water Vapor DIAL and DOW and Comparisons with Mesoscale Models During COPS.

In particular, satellite applications using different algorithms are extensively being tested in complex terrain (see the poster by Ayers et al. and Wulfmeyer's presentation).

For more information, see the COPS breakout session presentations from the ARM Science Team Meeting.