CPEX-LAB

Clouds and precipitation dominate our perception of weather and strongly influence our daily life. Due to their increasing impact on vulnerable infrastructures and renewable energy applications, they have become an economic factor. Many applications rely on our still inappropriate ability to observe and predict the evolution of the cloudy atmosphere.

Scientists from CPEX-LAB lead the scientific developments in Germany in ground-based microwave remote sensing, which is the sole technology able to penetrate and provide information from within the cloudy atmosphere. Together with international research groups, they aim at entangling the cloud-precipitation nexus through observations and high-resolution modelling in cooperation with the Centre for High-Performance Scientific Computing in Terrestrial Systems (HPSC TerrSys).

CPEX-LAB objectives are to contribute to improved warnings for extreme precipitation and wind gusts, forecasts of cloudiness for renewable energy applications, and to improve the representation of clouds and precipitation in weather and climate models. As a competence centre of Geoverbund ABC/J, the Laboratory for Clouds and Precipitation Exploration...

• acts from within Geoverbund as a central lever to better structure the Geoverbund research activities in meteorology, remote sensing, applied mathematics, engineering, computer sciences and terrestrial research in the area of clouds and precipitation,
• guides and accelerates the development of future observation and data assimilation capabilities, and
• detects and exploits synergies in cloud and precipitation research, teaching and applications.

CPEX-Lab combines four focus areas for better understanding and prediction of clouds and precipitation in the Earth system.