NAWDEX Campaign

The North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment (NAWDEX) is an international field campaign led by the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich and the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen) in cooperation with the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich and the Office of Naval Research in the USA.

The campaign is taking place from September 19^th to October 16^th 2016 in Iceland.

The German research aircraft HALO and DLR Falcon are deployed to generate new knowledge in the field of mid-latitude atmospheric dynamics and predictability.

The German/Swiss/US contribution to NAWDEX aims at locating and quantifying errors in the numerical representation of midlatitude Rossby waves and weather systems that are related to diabatic processes. Therefore remote sensing measurements on board HALO and DLR Falcon are carried out to obtain a comprehensive picture of the thermodynamic and flow structure near midlatitude jet streams and to quantify the impact of diabatic processes for the weather evolution over Europe.

NAWDEX aims at observing the physical processes that are responsible for the triggering and modification, propagation and downstream impact of Rossby waves on a transatlantic scale over several days in a quasi-Lagrangian experiment. The observation period is climatologically ideal to observe many relevant weather systems characterized by strong diabatic activity.

HALO in Keflavik's hangar on Sept. 23^rd 2016 (Photo: Manuel Gutleben)

Flight over the North Atlantic and across a Warm Conveyor Belt on Sept. 23^rd 2016 (Photo: Manuel Gutleben)

NAWDEX team with DLR Falcon (left), HALO (center) and the UK aircraft FAAM (right) (Photo: Julia Mack)

NAWDEX in the news

• A joint press release on NAWDEX has been released by DLR and by the LMU on September 28^th 2016. The text (in German) can be read here.
• A press release about the UK contribution to NAWDEX has been published here.
• An article was published on the BBC website and can be read here.
• The NAWDEX campaign has been briefly presented in the ARD-Morgenmagazin on October 21^st 2016. Read more about it here.

Additional information

• Information about the NAWDEX implementation plan can be found here.
• The official website of NAWDEX for the German/Swiss component is here.
• The official website of NAWDEX for the US component is here.