Understanding when and where rain and snow fall in Asian mountain regions like the Himalaya is one of the biggest scientific challenges. This precipitation is vital for millions of people but also causes dangerous floods and landslides. Because the mountains are so complex and measurements are limited, it’s hard to predict these patterns. The DROP project aims to uncover what controls high-altitude rain and snow, focusing on detailed, high-resolution atmospheric models.
In the DROP project, the Weather Research and Forecasting model will be run extensively at high resolution to understand interactions between mountains, land surface, large-scale atmospheric circulations and high-altitude precipitation at both regional and local (valley) scales. The model outputs will form the basis for future hydrological studies, helping scientists better understand water resources and natural hazards in these crucial mountain regions.
To perform this high-resolution atmospheric modelling, large computational resources are required, which can be applied for at the Dutch national supercomputer Snellius via large compute applications at the Dutch Research Council (NWO). A large application concerning 29 million core hours was recently assigned to René and Walter by NWO to carry out this research.
