There is increasing interest for the application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to the study of flows in the lower part of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). The simulation of atmospheric flows, often over complex domain, is necessary for the estimation of wind loads on buildings, wind turbine siting, pollutant dispersion and pedestrian wind comfort.

The present hybrid Lecture Series (on-site and online) offers a wide overview of the state-of-the-art, with applications ranging from microclimate, wind engineering, to mesoscale, meteorology, and their coupling. Reynolds-Averaged (RANS) and Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) approaches are discussed and their respective capabilities at meso- and microscales are evaluated, with focus on realistic inflow, wall modelling, uncertainty quantification and validation. Emerging trends such as the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) for acceleration of high-fidelity simulations are also addressed, including a tutorial of the open-source GPU-resident FastEddy code.

The lecture series director is prof. Wim Munters from the von Karman Institute.