Meteorology
Meteorology is the science that studies processes and phenomena in the atmosphere. The aim of the research is to understand what is happening and try to forecast the future. The weather affects everything, from how we as individuals plan ahead, to how the harvests turn out, to the occurrence of natural disasters such as storms, heat waves and floods.
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.
Forskningsområden
Observational platforms
Meteorological research at Uppsala University have had a large focus on measurements from the atmospheric boundary layer and especially the layers closest to the Earth’s surface. Over the years several field stations have been established and utilized for longer-term measurements to study various types of landscape features such as agricultural areas, lakes and seas, apart from the measurements maintained in vicinity to Uppsala University Campus, which are more urban. The Celsius temperature record collected in Uppsala started in 1722 and is one of the world’s longest and can be read more about here
There are three other main field measurement stations in use today by the Meteorology group in Uppsala:
Measurements are taken at field station located just north of Uppsala with mostly agricultural landscape surrounding the station since its establishment in the late 1940´s. The station both is and have been important as background rural measurements to the city of Uppsala and for various types of research conducted over the years.
To study air-lake interactions an instrumented tower at the Malma Island in the eastern part of the lake (about 50 km east of Uppsala) is also operated by the Meteorology group in connection to the Erken laboratory run by the Department of Ecology and Genetics. The laboratory is also part of the Swedish National Infrastructure for Ecosystem Research, SITES.
In 1995 the Östergarnsholm field station was established on a small island located 2 nautical miles off the east coast of Gotland with an instrumented 30 m tower used for many types of atmospheric micrometeorological research and studies of atmosphere-wave-sea interactions and gas exchange. Since 2015 it is part of the European Research Infrastructure ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) to quantify and understand the greenhouse gas balance of the European continent and of adjacent regions.
Läs mer om Marsta Erken och Östergarnsholm under infrastruktur