Field Course in Meteorology

Objectives

The course aims to provide practical and quantitative understanding of small scale processes relevant for the atmospheric boundary layer using experimental methods, with focus on the local scale and the related basic modern meteorological instrumentation, measurement methods,quality control and data management and archiving.

Content

The course consists of lectures on selected topics and a series of different practical tasks. The students will be trained via practical exercises in all skills required for planning and realization of experimental field work, including sensor calibration and handling and storage of data. In the theory part the effects of surface characteristics and vegetation on the energy and momentum transfer into the boundary layer are discussed. Particular focus will be on the characteristics of ground heat flux and evaporation processes. Various methods for the determination of the turbulent fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum are introduced and will be later applied by the students on a data set gained from a field campaign as part of the course.

In the practical part the students will learn about calibration of different meteorological instruments, quality control of experimental data, data formats and data management and the practical issues related to the planning, preparation and realization of a field experiment. They will be trained in the set-up and operation of a state-of-the-art automatic weather station and an energy balance station based on the eddy-covariance technique, conduct a short field campaign, measuring different meteorological parameters in the boundary layer. During that part of the course, the students are responsible for documenting the activities, producing a quality controlled dataset with metadata for archiving, analyzing the results and writing a final report.

On completion of the course, the student should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student

• has a good understanding of the processes and parameters determining the surface energy balance on the local scale and their importance as forcing for the atmospheric boundary layer
• has an overview over state-of-the-art measurement methods and instrumentation used in atmospheric boundary layer research and for surface energy balance studies
• can differentiate between the topics instrument calibration, quality control, metadata, data management and data archiving of experimental measurement data

Skills

The student

• can apply different methods for the calculation of boundary layer fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum
• can apply the relevant concepts related to evaporation and heat transport in the soil
• can define, plan, carry out, and document experimental field work in meteorology
• can produce a quality-controlled dataset ready for archiving in a database, including handkling and storage of measured data
• can perform laboratory calibrations of meteorological instrumentations
• can evaluate instrument accuracy of field measurements from calibration results

General competence

The student

• is able to assess the importance of local scale processes for meteorology and climate
• is able to assess the quality and uncertainty of datasets based in information about instrument calibration, quality control, procedures, data description, data management and archiving of measured data
• is able to assess the importance of field measurements in modern boundary layer meteorology and understands the need of appropriate calibration and data quality control, handling and storage of measured data