The FLOHOF Experiment

During July and August of 2007, extensive atmospheric observations were carried out around and over the Hofsjökull glacier in central Iceland. Hofsjökull (1782 m) is a relatively isolated mountain with a nearly circular shape which comes close to that assumed in indealized theoretical work. It has a diameter on the order of 30 km and rises about 1000 m above the surrounding highlands. The atmospheric flow was observed at high temporal resolutions by a network of automatic weather stations around and on Hofsjökull. Profiles were collected using a teathered balloon, theodolite observations and unmanned aircrafts. Fluxes were observed over the lava field north of the glacier. The experiment and the first results will be outlined but the FLOHOF campaign aims to address amongst others the following scientific questions: to explore the response of mountain induced gravity waves to changes of the synoptic flow, to explore the energy balance of a lava surface and the corresponding diurnal development of the boundary layer and to explore the katabatic flow and its extension into the surrounding. The experiment also serves as a first environmental test of a newly developed small unmanned meteorological observer (SUMO) on basis of an autonomously flying model aircraft. The campaign is also a compilation of high-resolution observations to validate fine-scale numerical simulations and model performance. -->