15/09/2025 – 19/09/2025
Hannover, Germany

PALM seminar 2025

About the Seminar
Leibniz University Hannover’s Institute of Meteorology and Climatology will host a full-time, in-person seminar on the PALM modeling system from 15 to 19 September 2025 in Hannover, Germany.

The PALM model system has been developed as a high-performance Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) tool since 1997 to study micro- and mesoscale turbulent boundary layer flows in the atmosphere and the ocean. PALM features include for example topography support, non-cyclic boundary conditions with turbulent inflow, an embedded Lagrangian particle model for cloud droplet physics, a wind turbine model for wind park simulations, and an interface for user-defined code. PALM is equipped with modules for urban applications, such as surface interaction processes, chemistry, radiation, nesting, and coupling with larger-scale models. PALM uses NetCDF format for I/O, is optimized for high performance computing, and scales on tens of thousands of processors. PALM is open-source under the GNU General Public License v3. For more information and downloads, visit http://palm-model.org.

Target Audience
This seminar is intended for future scientific users of PALM with little or no prior experience, but may also be suitable for students and practitioners, provided they have sufficient background knowledge. Participants should have basic knowledge of modelling, especially CFD, Fortran 2003, and Linux/Unix.

Seminar Content
This one-week seminar provides an overview of PALM and practical training for running simulations on participants’ own Linux computers or notebooks. Topics of the seminar include:

  • Introduction to the Large-Eddy Simulation technique
  • PALM’s governing equations and numerical methods
  • Key features and application examples
  • PALM installation and setup
  • Running simulations with provided shell scripts
  • Output analysis
  • Extending PALM with custom code
  • Debugging techniques

Several standard setups (e.g., convection, urban flow) will be demonstrated. Participants will complete guided hands-on exercises. Lecture and exercise materials will be provided as downloadable PDFs.

Seminar Fee
The participation fee is:

  • € 1000 for commercial enterprises
  • € 500 for educational and research institutions

This includes tuition, seminar materials, support during exercises, and coffee break beverages.

Registration
Register via the following link before 1 August 2025. 23:59 CEST:
https://survey.uni-hannover.de/index.php/381188?lang=en

Note: Registration may close earlier if the maximum of 50 participants is reached. Registered participants will receive further details (e.g., payment methods, seminar schedule, installation instructions) after the registration deadline.

Technical Requirements
Participants must bring a Linux computer or notebook with at least a quad-core processor.

Required software includes:

  • PDF viewer
  • VLC player or similar
  • Fortran 2003 compiler
  • MPI library
  • NetCDF library (version ≥ 3.6.3)
  • NetCDF graphics software (e.g., ncview)
  • Bash shell
  • Python 3.6 or higher

Note: Running PALM in a virtual machine is not recommended due to past technical issues.

Contact
If you have questions, please contact:
Prof. Björn Maronga
maronga@meteo.uni-hannover.de