Project properties
Title Evaluation and improvement of the ice growth model based on ice thickness observations obtained by crowdsourcing.
Group Meteorology and Air Quality Group
Project type thesis
Credits 36
Supervisor(s) Gert-Jan Steeneveld (Gert-Jan.Steeneveld@wur.nl)
Examiner(s) Prof. dr. AAM Holtslag
Contact info
Begin date 2018/01/01
End date 2020/02/01
Description Ice skating is one of the favorite Dutch leisure activities when it is freezing outside. However, ice skating is only fun if it safe, and therefore meteorologists are asked to forecast the ice thickness during frost episodes. In the 1980s, the Meteorology and Air Quality developed a model to forecast the ice growth (De Bruin and Wessels, 1988). At that time, the model was validated against observation taken during the Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Tour) of 1985. However, the model has not been systematically evaluated afterwards due to lack of data. On the other hand, operational forecasting agencies as KNMI and Meteo Consult have ventilated some worries concerning the model skill in winter 2009 and 2010.
Nowadays, crowdsourcing is a valuable tool for scientific data collection: general public collects field data using their own instrumentation. Data are then brought together via the Internet. Also the ice thickness observations are nowadays available via the web, i.e. via www.ijsdikte.eu, and thus offers an excellent opportunity to evaluate the ice growth model.
The research of this MSc thesis covers the following topics.
-Screening and selection of data from www.ijsdikte.eu for use of model validation.
-Setting up the model in a scientific program language, MatLab, NCL, R, ....
-Evaluating the model skill based on the frost episode of February 2012.
-Identify model main weaknesses and developing model improvement.

References:
H.A.R.de Bruin, H.R.A.Wessels, 1988, A model for the formation and melting of ice on surface waters, Journal of Applied Meteorology, 27, 164-173.
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