L. Durán

L. Durán
Complutense University of Madrid | UCM · Department of Physics of the Earth and Astrophysics

PhD
Researching mountain meteorology and climate. Models (40%) and observations (60%).

About

25
Publications
2,535
Reads
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414
Citations
Introduction
Additional affiliations
October 2000 - October 2012
Universidad Europea
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
November 1998 - August 2021
interMET
Position
  • CEO

Publications

Publications (25)
Article
Full-text available
Amphibian species are declining at an alarming rate on a global scale in large part owing to an infectious disease caused by the chytridiomycete fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. This disease of amphibians has recently emerged within Europe, but knowledge of its effects on amphibian assemblages remains poor. Importantly, little is known about...
Article
An analysis of the observed precipitation for the last 22 years (1989–2010) over Sierra de Guadarrama (centre of Iberian Central System) has been performed. Since this area has received less attention compared with other mountain ranges in Europe and the rest of the world, an exhaustive compilation of literature on precipitation main characteristic...
Article
It is well known how mountains play a crucial role in the climate system and have very particular climate features compared to other regions. Sierra de Guadarrama is a part of the Iberian Peninsula Central System (Spain), a mountain range located in the center of an extensive plateau, dominated by a continental Mediterranean climate but under a str...
Article
Full-text available
This work describes a mountain meteorological network that was in operation from 1999 to 2014 in a mountain range with elevations ranging from 1104 to 2428 m in Central Spain. Additionally, some technical details of the network are described, as well as variables measured and some meta information presented, which is expected to be useful for futur...
Article
Full-text available
A linear model of orographic precipitation is validated at Sierra de Guadarrama (Iberian Central System) using ERA-Interim as input and a historical set of precipitation data. It is the first time that a linear precipitation model is tested in a semi-arid region like this. The historical precipitation data come from three high-quality observatories...
Article
Full-text available
The reduction of in situ observations over the last few decades poses a potential risk of losing important information in regions where local effects dominate the climatology. Reanalyses face challenges in representing climatologies with highly localized effects, especially in regions with complex orography. Empirical downscaling methods offer a co...
Preprint
Full-text available
RASCAL is an open-source Python tool designed for reconstructing daily climate observations, especially in regions with complex local phenomena. It merges large-scale weather patterns with local weather using the Analog Method. Evaluations in central Spain show that RASCAL outperforms ERA20C reanalysis in reconstructing precipitation and temperatur...
Article
Full-text available
HIGHLIGHTS GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT • A snow pole with a set of temperature sensors provides an accurate estimate of snow depth compared to an ultrasonic sensor. • Snow depth estimates using the snow pole are accurate but show problems of underestimation during the growing season. • A new estimation method for snow depth has been developed which gives th...
Article
Full-text available
This study aims to examine the atmospheric conditions characterising fog phenomena on the Senegalese coast focusing on two specific instances that occurred on April 3 and April 30, 2023. These events were detected by the LIDAR Ceilometer installed at LPAOSF/ESP/UCAD and confirmed on the METARs of the meteorological stations at Dakar and Diass airpo...
Presentation
Full-text available
The snowpack is a fundamental element of the cryosphere and understanding its dynamics is crucial for regions where runoff is the main source of freshwater. Regarding the study of seasonal snow, it is necessary to know the processes that lead to its appearance, growth and ablation for a correct modelling and evaluation of the water resource. The th...
Article
Full-text available
Snow precipitation in mountains surrounded by semi-arid regions represents an important reservoir of fresh water during the melting season. The snow cover helps to compensate for the scarce precipitation that occurs during their long summer droughts. Knowing the phenomenology that leads to winter precipitation and snow at these areas becomes even m...
Presentation
Full-text available
The snowpack over mountains represents an important source of water both in these areas and in adjacent lowlands. It also has a large impact on their economy since it affects tourism, communications, logistics and risks associated with its recreational use. Snow cover in mid elevations is experimenting a significant decrease as a consequence of cli...
Presentation
The Factorial Snowpack Model (FSM, Essery, 2015) has been applied for the winters ranging from 2008 to 2021 to predict snow height in a location at 1800 m of altitude in Peñalara Massif (Sierra de Guadarrama, Central Spain). Data from an automatic meteorological station is used as input after a thorough validation and completion using different met...
Article
Full-text available
The Westward transport of mineral dust from the North Africa continent to Atlantic Ocean can produce poor air quality, low visibilities, and negatively impacting respiratory and cardiac health due to the optical and physical properties of aerosols. The dynamical impact of the sea-breeze on the dust vertical distribution in West Africa remains unkno...
Article
Laser disdrometers measure the particle size distribution (PSD) of hydrometeors through a small cross-sectional (tens of square centimeters) surface. Such a limited area induces a sampling effect in the estimates of the PSD, which translates to error in the reflectivity–rain-rate (Z–R) relationship used for ground radar estimates of rainfall, estim...
Article
Full-text available
This paper tackles a problem of surface wind speed reconstruction based on synoptic-scale meteorological fields. Specifically, two different approaches are discussed and compared: a pure Machine Learning method, formed by a Support Vector Regression and a genetic algorithm that only considers synoptic pressure as input variable, and a Weather Regim...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
An analysis of the observed precipitation for the last 22 years (1989-2010) over Sierra de Guadarrama (center of Iberian Central System) has been done. The analysis, based on both rain gauges and reanalysis, is focused on the search of the atmospheric mechanisms and moisture sources that lead to precipitation in this mountain range. A weather type...
Article
Knowing the number, type, and velocity of the vehicles that drive along a road is extremely important to manage efficiently the traffic flow and also to estimate the environmental impact that the road may have in the surroundings. In this work the development and preliminary tests for a nonintrusive instrument and method for traffic characterizatio...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Radiation modelling is a key factor when simulating the environmental conditions of any mountain region. Orographic complexity causes high variations of slope, aspect along with shade and reflections that make more complex calculation of the energy balance in mountain regions. Differences in this radiation balance, along with other factors, have in...
Conference Paper
There are several techniques for wind vertical profiling without the need of towers. Mostly of them where developed and tested some decades ago but, during the last years, due to the good performance and affordability of the newer developments, are being seeing as serious alternatives to the classical anemometric tower. For some locations, these sy...
Article
A high resolution meteorological network has been implemented for monitoring temperature, relative humidity and precipitation at very high altitudes. The system is made up by a specially designed ``terrestrial buoy'' for high altitudes of very low power requirement and great robustness. The complete system consists of seven of these terrestrial buo...

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