The UCLM is participating in the Olympic Games which will begin in South Korea next week providing its research and equipment. The research groups "Earth and Space Sciences" (CITE/ESS, Toledo) and "Concurrent Systems and Real Time (ReTiCS, Albacete) will provide forecasts and meteorological data for the competitions. The international scientific team for these games are made up of various Korean groups, one Swiss, One Canadian, NASA and the UCLM, apart from the World Meteorological organization. So, from Albacete, the weather forecast will be given using the UCLM-WRF model which is run on the GALGO supercomputer from the Albacete Computer Science Research Institute. Moreover, the radar from the Toledo Faculty of Environmental Sciences will measure precipitation in 3D continuously. These data will be combined with those of the other scientists so that the sports management for the games can take decisions in real time whilst the competitions are on.
This collaboration is the product of years of field-work in Korea and interdisciplinary collaboration between the UCLM groups. For several years, various UCLM scientists have been going to Korea and NASA to make all necessary organizations to participate in this great measurement campaign , providing techniques, skills and unique equipment. For Spain, part of the research is funded with the research project from the National Plan (CGL2016-80609-R) led by professor Francisco J. Tapiador.
For several editions now, the Winter Olympic Games have been used for scientists to organize measurement campaigns to study the weather and climate, so the great display of instruments and resources for running the games is made the most of, with a scientific purpose. In the 2018 games, the international team which the UCLM is part of , is interested in studying the physics of snow on terrain which is very abrupt and close to the sea, for which instruments attached to aeroplanes and boats will be used, apart from satellites and land-based radars and from the Korean meteorological network. The information obtained will be used to improve the models for forecasting weather and for simulating climate for the whole world, including areas which are a far cry from the Korean mountain climate, such as, for example, Castilla-La Mancha. It must be pointed out that a large part of the rain collected on the ground comes from merging with the snow which has been made above, in the clouds, so knowing the physics of this process is crucial for tackling the effects of climate change.
Link: www.earthphysics.net
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Photographs: The UCLM radar at its location in Korea, ready to measure precipitation.