IWAL–An Interactive Weather Analysis Laboratory

Abstract

Abstract Complementary key elements of meteorological education are the provision of a thorough theoretical understanding of the physical laws governing atmospheric motions, and the hands-on investigation and visualization of specific weather systems. However, the latter task is technically challenging, because specific skills must be acquired for flexibly handling meteorological data. Some examples are superimposing satellite pictures and reanalysis fields, producing an isentropic potential vorticity (PV) map, and visualizing a vertical section across a flow feature of interest. Although learning these technical issues has its own merits, it can distract students from investigating the complexities of meteorology. This experience from teaching beginner classes in synoptic meteorology at ETH Zurich and the University of Mainz was the main motivation for developing the educational software tool IWAL, the Interactive Weather Analysis Laboratory. IWAL is designed as a web application for easy, fast, and interactive access to large meteorological datasets, which enables active and curiosity-driven learning. The main target users of IWAL are students with little or no experience in the handling and visualization of such data. The interactivity; the option to very easily reproduce complex visualizations; and advanced features, such as the interactive computation of trajectories, are also of interest to more experienced students and lecturers.