Prof.dr.ir. B.J.H. (Bas) van de Wiel

Profile

Bas van de Wiel is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek-professor in “Atmospheric Physics” at the department of Geoscience and Remote Sensing, faculty of Civil Engineering. 

I have a broad interest in environmental fluid mechanics and atmospheric physics (Dutch: ‘natuurkunde van ‘t vrije veld’). In particular physical transport phenomena in turbulent, stratified flows fascinate me through their dynamical richness. I like to convey my enthusiasm for research via various lectures related to physical transport phenomena.
 

Research

With my team of enthusiastic students and colleagues I study atmospheric boundary layers under thermal stratification and also their interaction with the land surface. The so-called ‘cold case’ is of particular interest, as it is poorly represented by present generation weather- and climate models (leading to large forecast errors in arctic/winter). We combine in-depth theoretical work with various numerical modelling approaches and analysis of atmospheric observations from various experimental sites.  Research relevance for: fog/frost prediction, traffic safety, climate research, wind energy predictions and air pollution modelling. In recent years, we got specific interest in agricultural applications. In particular to mitigation of fruit frost by means of air mixing with wind machines (see graphics). This latter project is collaborative work with Water Management (Ten Veldhuis, Coenders, Schilperoort, Van Hooft, Yi, Boekee, Heusinkveld et al.).