A entral theme in my research is to try and utilize both experimental methods and numerical modeling in investigating the atmosphere. This is because I beleive that to understand an atmospheric phenomenen it has to be observed. However, the atmosphere is not like a normal laboratory, where one can design and control the experiment. Frequently, observations fail to provide all the data or all the aspects of a certain phenomenon. When this is the case, and that is often, careful numerical simulation can shed light on the missing piece of evidence, or as a friend of mine ones put it:
 

 A numerical simulation is not always realistic, but (with the exception of things like the odd coding error) it is physically and dynamically consistent. A set of different measurements are always true (within the accuracy of the sensors and their calibration) but are not always dynamically consistent with each other. In addition, one cannot measure everything everywhere - in a model time-space continuity is an inherrent property. A careful blend of experimental data and numerical modeling is thus my recepy for success. 

I have been applying this philosophy to mesoscale and boundary layer meteorology in three main areas: