COST 733: Data and methods

The COST Action 733 “Harmonisation and Applications of Weather Type Classifications for European Regions” is a coordinated effort to develop, compare, and apply numerical methods for the objective classification of weather situations in European regions.
Currently, participants from 21 European countries collaborate within COST 733. Swiss participants are the University of Berne (Institute of Geography) and MeteoSwiss. For more details see http://www.cost733.org

The objectives of MeteoSwiss within COST 733 are:

1. To identify automatic classification methods[1] that could complement or substitute manual schemes currently in use at MeteoSwiss[2,3]. To this end, various schemes are compared with respect to their ability to describe surface climate variations. In these analyses, particular emphasis is put on the distribution of precipitation in the Alps ([4], Figure 1). 
   
2. To examine if and how weather type information could be exploited as supplementary real-time information for spatial precipitation analysis. These studies seek to improve real-time analyses based solely on the sparse network of automatic rain-gauges (Figure 2).
   

References

[1] Philipp, A, et al., 2010: Cost733cat ? A database of weather and circulation type classifications, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 35, 360-373, doi:10.1016/j.pce.2009.12.010

[2] Schüepp, M, 1968: Kalender der Wetter- und Witterungslagen von 1955 bis 1967. MeteoSchweiz Veröffentlichungen, 11, 44pp.

[3] Perret, R, 1987: Une classification des situations météorologiques à l'usage de la prévision. MeteoSchweiz Veröffentlichungen, 46, 127pp.

[4] Schiemann, R, and Frei, C, 2009: How to quantify the resolution of surface climate by circulation types: an example for Alpine precipitation. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, conditionally accepted.

[5] Rasilla Álvarez, D F, 2003: Aplicación de un método de clasificación sinóptica a la Península Ibérica. Investigaciones Geográficas, 30, 27-45, Instituto Universitario de Geografía, Universidad de Alicante, in Spanish.

[6] Frei, C, and Schär, C, 1998: A precipitation climatology of the Alps from high-resolution rain-gauge observations. Int. J. Climatol., 18, 873-900.

[7] Schiemann, R, and Frei, C, 2010: How to quantify the resolution of surface climate by circulation types: An example for Alpine precipitation, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 35, 403-410, doi:10.1016/j.pce.2009.09.005

[8] Schiemann, R, Liniger, M A, and Frei, C, 2010: Reduced space optimal interpolation of daily rain gauge precipitation in Switzerland, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D14109, doi:10.1029/2009JD013047

For further information, please contact: Tanja Weusthoff, Christoph Frei.