FLake is suitable for various applications. It can be used as a lake parameterisation scheme in numerical weather prediction (NWP), climate modelling, and other numerical prediction systems for environmental applications. It can be used as a single-column lake model in a stand-alone mode, as a physical module in models of lake ecosystems, and as an educational tool.
As a lake parameterisation schemeFLake is implemented into the limited-area NWP models COSMO and HIRLAM and into the global NWP models ICON and IFS. Details of the implementation into COSMO are given in Mironov et al. (2010). Since 15 December 2010FLake is used operationally at the German Weather Service (DWD) within the COSMO-EU (Europe) configuration of the COSMO model. Since 18 April 2012FLake is operational within the COSMO-DE (Germany) which is a basic COSMO-model configuration of the DWD ensemble prediction system at "convection permitting" resolution (horizontal mesh size is ca. 2.8 km). Since 6 March 2012FLake is operational within HIRLAM at the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). Since 20 January 2015FLake is operational at DWD within ICON. Since 12 May 2015FLake is overational at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) within IFS.
FLake is also implemented into the UK Met Office Unified Model, into the NWP model suite of Meteo France, into the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), and into the climate models CLM (the CLM Community), RCA (SMHI – Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute), and the Canadian Regional Climate Model (Environment Canada).FLake is incorporated as a lake parameterisation module into the surface schemes HTESSEL (ECMWF), SURFEX (Meteo France), and JULES (UK Met Office/Universities).
In order to be incorporated into an NWP or climate model as a lake parameterisation scheme, FLake requires a number of two-dimensional external-parameter fields. These are, first of all, the fields of lake fraction (area fraction of a given grid box of an NWP or climate model covered by lake water that must be compatible with the land-sea mask used) and of lake depth. These external-parameter fields should be generated using one or the other data set. To this end, a global lake-depth data set is developed (Kourzeneva 2009, Kourzeneva 2010, Kourzeneva et al. 2012, Choulga et al. 2014). See "External-parameter data sets" for further information (click the respective menu button in the menu window). Apart from lake fraction and lake depth, other external parameters are required, e.g. optical characteristics of the lake water. These are assigned their default values offered byFLake (see "Useful hints"). For lack of empirical data on the optical characteristics of water, no data set with global or regional coverage is currently available. Hence the defaultFLake estimates is a recommended choice at the moment for NWP and climate modelling.
These and otherFLake applications are mentioned in the list ofFLake users. Click the respective menu button in the menu window.
FLake