Weather and Climate Models
The course starts on Thursday, 19. February 2026 at 14:15. The lectures and tutorials will be in-class only (no live streaming), but recordings will be made available. Questions (lectures and tutorials) can be asked in class or using Piazza. An outline of the lecture can be found below under "Course schedule & slides".
The guiding principle of this lecture is that students can understand how weather and climate models are formulated from the governing physical principles and how they are used for weather prediction and climate projections.
Learning Targets:
- Understand fundamental equations governing weather and climate models.
- Run a state-of-the-art weather model and analyze forecast outputs.
- Recognize key challenges in weather and climate modeling.
- Develop critical skills for interpreting and using model results.
- Explore real-world applications of weather and climate models in decision-making.
During the tutorial, you will learn how to setup and run the Weather Research and Forecasting (Download WRF (PDF, 2.8 MB)) model on the EULER supercomputer at ETH. We will produce forecasts of Hurricane external page Matthew, and study how sensitive the forecasts are to different model configurations. You will perform a control simulation, then break into project groups. Each project group will perform additional simulations targeted at understanding a specific science question. Each group will prepare a poster summarizing the key results that they presented during the last tutorial.
At the end of the course, you are asked to submit a short report (less than four pages) where you interpret the experiments from your group. Each student has to submit an individual report. The report will be graded and will contribute 20 % to your final course mark. If you do not hand in the report, your maximum course mark is a 5.
The tutorial will be led by Santiago Hernandez <> and supported by the other teaching assistants. The tutorial will take place from 16:15 to 18:00 in the room ML D 28 on the following dates:
Upload your individual reports with the name <first_name>_<last_name>.pdf by 26th June 2025 at 17:00 (CEST). We will provide additional guidelines on writing your report later in the semester.
The final mark will be based on both the tutorial report (20 %) and the written exam at the end of the course (80 %). Both elements are graded. Credits are provided if the average grade is greater or equal to 4. Further information is provided in the outline above. Here are some sample exam questions.
General Information
- IPCC, AR6, WG1 report, 2021: external page Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Recommended: Summary for Policy Makers, Technical Summary
- IPCC, AR6, 2023: external page Synthesis Report. Recommended: Summary for Policy Makers
- CH2018 Swiss Climate Change Scenarios, 2018: external page Brochure, Technical Report, data, etc.
- Article about Lewis F. Richardson: Download NZZ Folio, by Reto U. Schneider (PDF, 143 KB) (March 2014, in German)
Introduction to Numerical Methods
- Download WCM_numerics_lecture_notes.pdf: This document contains a repetition of finite difference methods that is more extensifely covered in the course "Numerische Methoden in der Umweltphysik". The file roughly covers the basics introduced in the course Weather and Climate Modeling in the master Atmospheric and Climate Sciences (but does not contain any explanations and derivations).
