Model:

Updated:

27 times per day, from 00:00, 03:00, 06:00, 09:00, 12:00, 15:00, 18:00, 21:00 UTC

Greenwich Mean Time:

12:00 UTC = 01:00 NZDT

Resolution:

0.0625° x 0.0625°

Parameter:

Geopotential in 500 hPa (solid, black lines) and Temperature advection in K/6h (colored lines)

Description:

The map "T-Adv 500" shows the advection of cold or warm air at 500 hPa level. Negative values indicate cold advection, while positive values indicate warm air advection. Advection of warm or cold air causes the geopotential height to respectively rise or drop, producing vertical rising and sinking motion of air. There is, however, not a direct relationship between temperature advection and resultant vertical motion in the atmosphere since other lifting and sinking mechanisms can complicate the picture, e.g. vorticity advection (see "V-Adv maps").
In weather forecasting, temperature advection maps are often used to locate the postion of wam and cold fronts. Cold advection is common behind cold fronts, while warm advection is common behind warm fronts and ahead of cold fronts. Higher in the atmosphere temperature advection is getting less pronounced, as horizontal much more uniform in temperature and the flow is more zonal.

COSMO-DE:

The COSMO-Model is a nonhydrostatic limited-area atmospheric prediction model. It has been designed for both operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) and various scientific applications on the meso-β and meso-γ scale. The COSMO-Model is based on the primitive thermo-hydrodynamical equations describing compressible flow in a moist atmosphere. The model equations are formulated in rotated geographical coordinates and a generalized terrain following height coordinate. A variety of physical processes are taken into account by parameterization schemes.
The basic version of the COSMO-Model (formerly known as Lokal Modell (LM)) has been developed at the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD). The COSMO-Model and the triangular mesh global gridpoint model GME form – together with the corresponding data assimilation schemes – the NWP-system at DWD, which is run operationally since end of 1999. The subsequent developments related to the model have been organized within COSMO, the Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling. COSMO aims at the improvement, maintenance and operational application of the non-hydrostatic limited-area modelling system, which is now consequently called the COSMO-Model.

NWP:

Numerical weather prediction uses current weather conditions as input into mathematical models of the atmosphere to predict the weather. Although the first efforts to accomplish this were done in the 1920s, it wasn't until the advent of the computer and computer simulation that it was feasible to do in real-time. Manipulating the huge datasets and performing the complex calculations necessary to do this on a resolution fine enough to make the results useful requires the use of some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. A number of forecast models, both global and regional in scale, are run to help create forecasts for nations worldwide. Use of model ensemble forecasts helps to define the forecast uncertainty and extend weather forecasting farther into the future than would otherwise be possible.

Wikipedia, Numerical weather prediction, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction(as of Feb. 9, 2010, 20:50 UTC).