Almost all groups met during the Mountain Meteorology Conference/MAP meeting at Park City in June 2002. Short news of possible interest to people outside the working groups are provided below:
Numerical modelling: Performed model intercomparison of the simulated precipitation fields of the heavy precipitation MAP IOP2B event. The results were presented at the Mountain Meteorology Conference/MAP meeting in Park City. Deviations of +- 30% between model and observations were largely due to different smoothing of the underlying topography. More details are available online at http://ams.confex.com/ ams/10Mountain/10MntMet/abstracts/ 40549.htm.
Hydrology: Eleven papers will appear in a special issue of "Hydrology and Earth System Sciences". It is planned to run hydrological models for the IOP 2B with precipitation input from the Numerical Modelling WG’s model intercomparison.
Precipitation Processes: This is a new working group initiated at the MSC meeting in Park City. It is the umbrella for "wet-MAP" research and already has an attractive website with extensive lists of historical and MAP references.
Radar: Its objectives were fulfilled. Accordingly, it was dissolved in Park City.
Gravity Wave Breaking: At the Park City this working group incorporated the former PV Streamers group. The 8 November 1999 (IOP15) is the best-observed case and main target of studies.
Lidar: Was asked to organize a special lidar session at the next MAP meeting in Brig.
FORM (foehn in the Rhine valley): Meets usually two times a year. A special issue of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics is in preparation.
Mesoscale Alpine Climatology (MAC):
Did not receive the applied-for EU-funding. Is exploring the possibility of becoming part of EUMETNET’s UNIDART
initiative (http://www.dwd.de/UNIDART).
