Cold‐air pool development in a small Alpine valley

Abstract

A field campaign in a valley near Seefeld, Austria, well known for the frequent occurrence of cold‐air pools, was conducted to identify the processes leading to the formation and erosion of the cold‐air pool. Here, we focus on a case study in January 2020 that featured cold‐air pool formation interrupted by a wind disturbance. Simulations with the Weather Research and Forecasting model were performed at a horizontal grid spacing of 40 m and compared with measurement results. The model was able to reproduce the intense cooling in the beginning of the night and the cold‐air pool erosion in the middle of the night caused by the wind disturbance, but stronger winds than observed prevented the cold‐air pool from fully re‐establishing in the model after the disturbance. The dominant cooling processes were long‐wave radiative heat loss and turbulent exchange, both of which are parametrized and cool the air locally. Advection was the most important warming contribution during the cold‐air pool disturbances, especially its cross‐valley and vertical components. Owing to numerical constraints and the shallow nature of the cold‐air pool, its extent was limited to the lowest model level. Further improvements to the cold‐air pool's representation in the model would require a finer grid resolution.