Personal overseas fellowship to support Ph.D project regarding present and future ice loads on infrastructure in Norway

The personal overseas research grant will be spent on a three month study visit to NCAR, for Ph.D. student Bjørg Jenny Kokkvoll Engdahl. The work will contribute to the Ph.D. project: Improved predictions and future changes of atmospheric icing in Norway, which is a part of the larger project Wind Ice and Snow Load Impacts on Infrastructure and the Natural Environment (WISLINE), funded by KLIMAFORSK. The goal of the Ph.D. project is to estimate the geographical distribution and severity of ice loads on infrastructure such as power lines, in both the current and in a future climate. Part one of the project is to improve the representation of physical processes in clouds, in the HARMONIE-AROME model, which is the operational model at Norwegian meteorological institute (MET-Norway). This is done by piecewise implementation of important processes from the Thompson et al. (2008) microphysical scheme. The expected outcome of this is an improved representation of supercooled liquid water, which is essential when estimating ice loads. The new HARMONIE-AROME microphysics scheme will be validated through both idealised test cases and real cases. The project brings together international experts from both national meteorological institutes (MET-Norway, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI)), private companies (Kjeller Vindteknikk), and research institutes (NCAR), as well as universities (university of Oslo). The Ph.D. candidate plans to write popular science summaries designed for a broader audience, of all papers published as a part of the degree.