SC17 North Atlantic Icelandic Low 1.5-km - Simulation

The GEOS model is used to illustrate the role of resolution in representing the cloud field associated with an Icelandic Low in April of 2017. As low pressure systems depart the east coast of the United States they intensify in a region of the North Atlantic near Iceland forming what are known as Icelandic Lows. A variety of clouds types can form within these systems. The size of the grid cells used to simulate the atmosphere in the GEOS model has a significant influence on the types of clouds that can be resolved in these systems.

This animation was produced by the GEOS model at a resolution of 1.5km per grid cell. At this level of detail, the GEOS model now explicitly resolves detailed cloud structures within this system including convective clouds within the front and individual stratocumulus cloud clusters behind the front.