In July 2025, natESM, DWD, and KIT jointly organized a technical ICON training at DKRZ in Hamburg. 

Over the course of five days, participants explored ICON, ICON-ART, the ComIn GUI, and the YAC coupler. 

Training content and materials

The training combined lectures and interactive exercises to provide participants with a comprehensive introduction to key components of the ICON model system.
Topics included model dynamics, microphysics, radiation, turbulent transfer, land and soil processes, as well as aerosols and reactive trace gases.

Each morning started with expert talks from DWD, KIT and DKRZ, followed by practical exercises. You can access all materials and we are working on uploading the recordings on the DKRZ Youtube channel [all marked with **].

In the evenings, participants and lecturers had the opportunity to continue their conversations over dinner in a relaxed setting.

Day 1: Getting started
  1. Getting Started by Florian Prill (DWD)
    To get to know ICON in general visit https://icon-model.org
  2. Exercise: ICON Jupyter Notebooks
  3. Exercise: Running Idealized Tests
Day 2: Dynamics &Transport, Nesting & LAM
  1. Dynamics and Transport by Daniel Reinert (DWD)
  2. Nesting & LAM by Daniel Reinert (DWD)
  3. Exercise: Global NWP
  4. Initial and Boundary Data by Daniel Rieger (DWD)
  5. Exercise: Limited Area Runs
Day 3: Atmospheric Physics and Land
  1. Physics Overview** by Martin Köhler (DWD)
  2. Radiation** by Mareike Burba (DWD)
  3. Land and Soil and Lakes and Sea Ice** by Jan-Peter Schulz (DWD)
  4. Turbulence** by Matthias Raschendorfer (DWD)
  5. Clouds and Precipitation** by Martin Köhler (DWD)
  6. ComIn Plugins** by Manoosh Haghighatnasab (DWD)
  7. Exercise: Programming ICON and ICON ComIn
Day 4: Aerosols and ICON-ART
  1. Atmo-Ocean Runs** by Johann Jungclaus (MPI-M) [Watch the nextGEMS video]
  2. ICON-ART and Primary Aerosols** by Ali Hoshyaripour (KIT)
  3. Exercise: ART Primary Aerosols
  4. Chemistry** by Corina Keller (EMPA)
  5. Exercise: ART Chemistry
  6. Secondary Aerosols** by Julia Bruckert (KIT)
  7. Exercise: ART Secondary Aerosols
Day 5: YAC and ComIn
  1. Coupling with YAC** by Moritz Hanke (DKRZ)
  2. Exercise: ICON ComIn
  3. Exercise: ComIn and YAC

The training week offered valuable insights into ICON and its components, along with plenty of opportunities for exchanging ideas and exploring new approaches to participants’ own work.

You can find the final agenda here.

Photos (For more photos click here)

Impressionen M.Rompe