Atmospheric moisture tracking is a valuable technique for understanding the physical processes that drive (extreme) precipitation and drought in our changing climate. By following where precipitated moisture originally evaporated (backtracking) or where evaporated moisture eventually precipitates (forward tracking) we can gain valuable insights into the connection of large-scale weather systems and hydrometeorological events, land-atmosphere interactions, or the impact of land-use changes on water availability.
The WAM-2layers model is a Eulerian moisture tracking code that solves the water balance equation for tagged moisture in gridded model output data. Originally developed by Ruud van der Ent, the code has been reused by various others, and still more have expressed interest. With the increasing resolution of weather and climate models, however, data handling and performance have become a serious constraint.
In a new optimization project with the Netherlands eScience Center, we aim to tackle these computational challenges and develop an improved version of WAM-2layers. The updated code should be flexible and easy to use with input data from different sources including ERA5. This will enable a series of sensitivity experiments to establish best practices and case studies to answer new research questions. As a proof of concept, the optimized code will be used to study the extreme precipitation event that lead to heavy floods in the Eiffel and the Ardennes in July of 2021.
At the EMS conference, we will show the first results of the optimization project. This abstract focuses on the technical aspects and how others can reuse or contribute to the code. In a companion abstract (Benedict et al.) we will present some scientific results.
How to cite: Kalverla, P., Benedict, I., van der Ent, R., Weijenborg, C., and Haarsma, R.: User-friendly moisture tracking with WAM-2layers, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-105, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-105, 2022.
