Exploiting Observations in Meteorology
There are much too few observations in the lowest 1-2 km of the atmosphere, the so-called atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). We perform research on new meteorological observation systems and investigate if and how these can improve our knowledge on the structure of the ABL, e.g. temperature, humidity and winds. Developing such methods can help us shed light on the physical processes in the ABL such as turbulent fluxes or cloud and precipitation formation. Also, we investigate the impact of these observational methods on short-term weather forecasts and high-resolution re-analyses.
For this - the VITAL II campaign has started on June 1st, 2026. Check out the VITAL website.
Some recent publications
Pfitzenmaier, L., Kollias, P., Risse, N., Schirmacher, I., Puigdomenech Treserras, B., and Lamer, K.: Orbital-Radar v1.0.0: A tool to transform suborbital radar observations to synthetic EarthCARE cloud radar data, Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 101–115, 2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-101-2025
Böck, T., B. Pospichal and U. Löhnert: Measurement uncertainties of scanning microwave radiometers and their influence on temperature profiling, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 219–233, 2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-219-2024
Laj et al. (incl. B. Pospichal): Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS): The European Research Infrastructure Supporting Atmospheric Science, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 105, E1098–E1136, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0064.1
Griewank, P.J., M. Weissmann, T. Necker, T. Nomokonova and U. Löhnert: Ensemble-based estimates of the impact of potential observations. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 149(754), 1546–1571, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4464
Hohenegger, C., F. Ament, F. Beyrich, U. Löhnert, H. Rust et al. (incl. T. Böck, T Nomokonova: FESSTVaL: The Field Experiment on Submesoscale Spatio-Temporal Variability in Lindenberg. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 104, E1875–E1892, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0330.1
Nomokonova, T., Griewank, P.J., Löhnert, U., Miyoshi, T., Necker, T. & Weissmann: Estimating the benefit of Doppler wind lidars for short-term low-level wind ensemble forecasts. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 1– 19, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4402
Steinheuer, J., C. Detring, F. Beyrich, U. Löhnert, P. Friederichs, and S. Fiedler, 2022: A new scanning scheme and flexible retrieval for mean winds and gusts from Doppler lidar measurements, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 3243–3260, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3243-2022.
more (2021 and after)
more (before 2021)
Group leader
Work with us
- BSc / MSc theses themes (email for password)