The TEAMx Observational Campaign – First findings from the winter campaign

TEAMx (multi-scale transport and exchange processes in the atmosphere over mountains – programme and experiment) is an international research program that aims at improving our understanding of exchange processes over complex terrain and at evaluating and improving the representation of these processes in numerical weather and climate prediction models. As part of TEAMx, a one-year long field campaign, the TEAMx Observational Campaign (TOC), started in September 2024, with dedicated observations being conducted in four target areas aligned in an approximate north-south cross section through the European Alps. In addition to long-term monitoring during the TOC, shorter experiments with a high density of instrumentation target processes under different atmospheric conditions and at a range of spatial scales from turbulence to cross-Alpine transport during two extended observational periods.

The first of these two extended observational periods took place between January and February 2025, with experiments focusing on the Inn Valley, Austria, and the Wipp Valley, Italy. The measurements were designed to observe (i) the three-dimensional structure of the mountain boundary layer, including its turbulence characteristics; (ii) the mean and turbulent structure of katabatic winds over a steep snow-covered slope and its response to larger-scale flows; (iii) the three-dimensional structure of mountain waves; and (iv) the life cycle of low-level stratiform clouds forming in the valley atmosphere. To this purpose, measurements were conducted with a suite of instruments, including research aircraft, radiosoundings, remote-sensing wind and temperature profilers, tethered balloons, and a network of turbulence towers.

This presentation will give a brief overview of TEAMx and highlight some of the very first findings from the experiments conducted during the winter campaign.