F. Saïd

HyMeX-SOP1: The Field Campaign Dedicated to Heavy Precipitation and Flash Flooding in the Northwestern Mediterranean

The Mediterranean region is frequently affected by heavy precipitation events associated with flash floods, landslides, and mudslides that cause hundreds of millions of euros in damages per year and often, casualties. A major field campaign was devoted to heavy precipitation and flash floods from 5 September to 6 November 2012 within the framework of the 10-year international HyMeX (Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment) dedicated to the hydrological cycle and related high-impact events. The 2- month field campaign took place over the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea and its surrounding coastal regions in France, Italy, and Spain. The observation strategy of the field experiment was devised to improve our knowledge on the following key components leading to heavy precipitation and flash flooding in the region: i) the marine atmospheric flows that transport moist and conditionally unstable air towards the coasts; ii) the Mediterranean Sea acting as a moisture and energy source; iii) the dynamics and microphysics of the convective systems producing heavy precipitation; iv) the hydrological processes during flash floods. This article provides the rationale for developing this first HyMeX field experiment and an overview of its design and execution. Highlights of some Intense Observation Periods illustrate the potential of the unique datasets collected for process understanding, model improvement and data assimilation.

Observation of the Diurnal Cycle in the Low Troposphere of West Africa

Abstract The authors give an overview of the diurnal cycle of the low troposphere during 2006 at two different sites, Niamey (Niger) and Nangatchori (Benin). This study is partly based on the first observations of UHF wind profilers ever made in West Africa in the context of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) project. Also used are the radiosoundings made in Niamey and ground station observations at Nangatchori, which allow for the study of the impact of the dynamics on the water vapor cycle and the turbulence observed at the ground. Profiler measurements revealed a very consistent year-round nocturnal low-level jet maximal around 0500 UTC and centered at 400-m above the ground, with wind speed around 15 m s−1. This jet comes either from the northeast during the dry season or from the southwest during the wet season, in relation with the position of the intertropical discontinuity. The radiosoundings made in Niamey highlight both the role of the nocturnal jet in bringing water vapor fro...

Regional transport and dilution during high-pollution episodes in southern France: Summary of findings from the Field Experiment to Constraint Models of Atmospheric Pollution and Emissions Transport (ESCOMPTE)

In the French Mediterranean basin the large city of Marseille and its industrialized suburbs (oil plants in the Fos-Berre area) are major pollutant sources that cause frequent and hazardous pollution episodes, especially in summer when intense solar heating enhances the photochemical activity and when the sea breeze circulation redistributes pollutants farther north in the countryside. This paper summarizes the findings of 5 years of research on the sea breeze in southern France and related mesoscale transport and dilution of pollutants within the Field Experiment to Constraint Models of Atmospheric Pollution and Emissions Transport (ESCOMPTE) program held in June and July 2001. This paper provides an overview of the experimental and numerical challenges identified before the ESCOMPTE field experiment and summarizes the key findings made in observation, simulation, and theory. We specifically address the role of large-scale atmospheric circulation to local ozone vertical distribution and the mesoscale processes driving horizontal advection of pollutants and vertical transport and mixing via entrainment at the top of the sea breeze or at the front and venting along the sloped terrain. The crucial importance of the interactions between processes of various spatial and temporal scales is thus highlighted. The advances in numerical modeling and forecasting of sea breeze events and ozone pollution episodes in southern France are also underlined. Finally, we conclude and point out some open research questions needing further investigation.In the French Mediterranean basin the large city of Marseille and its industrialized suburbs (oil plants in the Fos-Berre area) are major pollutant sources that cause frequent and hazardous pollution episodes, especially in summer when intense solar heating enhances the photochemical activity and when the sea breeze circulation redistributes pollutants farther north in the countryside. This paper summarizes the findings of 5 years of research on the sea breeze in southern France and related mesoscale transport and dilution of pollutants within the Field Experiment to Constraint Models of Atmospheric Pollution and Emissions Transport (ESCOMPTE) program held in June and July 2001. This paper provides an overview of the experimental and numerical challenges identified before the ESCOMPTE field experiment and summarizes the key findings made in observation, simulation, and theory. We specifically address the role of large-scale atmospheric circulation to local ozone vertical distribution and the mesoscale processes driving horizontal advection of pollutants and vertical transport and mixing via entrainment at the top of the sea breeze or at the front and venting along the sloped terrain. The crucial importance of the interactions between processes of various spatial and temporal scales is thus highlighted. The advances in numerical modeling and forecasting of sea breeze events and ozone pollution episodes in southern France are also underlined. Finally, we conclude and point out some open research questions needing further investigation.

TRAC98: Detection of Coherent Structures in a Convective Boundary Layer using Airborne Measurements

The TRAC98 experimental campaign (Turbulence Radar Aircraft Cells) devoted to coherent structures analysis took place over the Beauce plain (France) during summer 1998. It allowed us to collect a large dataset of airborne measurements in addition to various ground measurements. This study aims at diagnosing the occurrence of coherent structures within the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) through airborne measurements. The statistical analysis performed as a first step from turbulent parameters underlined the homogeneity of the ABL over the Beauce plain. However mixed-layer scaling failed at the top of the ABL, even when taking into account the entrainment rate. Coherent structures were detected through the analysis of ABL isotropy, using the opportunity of sampling with two perpendicular crossing planes, one of them being aligned with the wind. This approach allowed us to determine an organization scheme of the ABL for three of the five flights (ARAT30, MIV30 and MIV27). For the ARAT30 flight, the analysis was pursued by focusing on measurements of fluctuations in the inner flight legs. In this way, the low-level cloud cover has been investigated from the downward visible radiation (VISD). The results indicated an anisotropy of the horizontal cloud size. Secondly, the variations of some parameters were analysed through lagged correlation functions. This allowed us to infer relationships between the vertical velocity, VISD, mixing ratio and lifting condensation level. Length scales have also been extracted, and confirmed the ABL organization during the ARAT30 flight. Finally, the anisotropy observed in various flights has been investigated with respect to the underestimation of the latent heat fluxes revealed by the imbalance of the surface energy budget.

Experimental study of the atmospheric marine boundary layer from in-situ aircraft measurements (TOSCANE-T Campaign): Variability of boundary conditions and eddy flux parameterization

The need for a thorough knowledge of boundary conditions over the vast oceanic surfaces makes remote sensing appear as the most suitable tool for future development. Remote sensing techniques require calibration data and consequently in-situ experiments to yield those data. Over the sea, aircraft seem to be the most convenient means of conducting validation experiments because they allow exploration of a large range of scales (from local measurements to measurements of pixel scale). This paper reports on some in-situ atmospheric aircraft measurements that were conducted as part of the TOSCANE-T experiment organized by the European Space Agency to calibrate the scatterometer for launch on ERS-1 in the early 1990s for global ocean wind measurement.The data analysed are the thermodynamic and turbulent variables measured by an instrumented aircraft, the Hurel Dubois, flying at a constant level of 50 m over the sea surface. Special attention was drawn to the variability of the boundary conditions within areas of 25 × 30 km. In fact, the two-dimensional fields of fluxes and thermodynamic parameters were inhomogeneous with some rather strong wind distortion.The eddy fluxes were parameterized with the aid of bulk aerodynamic formulations at a basic scale of 30 km samples, which corresponds to the aircraft flux computation legs. The bulk aerodynamic coefficients for momentum and heat were found to remain independent of windspeed (for wind velocities less than 12 m/s). Fluxes and thermodynamic parameters were also investigated at two other scales: the integration scale was either reduced to small areas of which size always remains larger than several characteristic lengths of turbulent transfer, or extended to a large area of 25 × 30km. The results of the bulk aerodynamic relationships appeared to be scale invariant, which would therefore justify the application of average values, within the range of scales under study.

Use of the Inertial Dissipation Method for Calculating Turbulent Fluxes from Low-Level Airborne Measurements

Abstract Airborne measurements are currently used for computing turbulence fluxes of heat and momentum. The method generally used is the eddy correlation technique, which requires sophisticated equipments to calculate the absolute velocities of the air. We used the well-known inertial dissipation method to calculate the turbulent fluxes of heat and momentum from low-level airborne measurements This only requires knowledge of inertial subrange characteristics of velocity and scalars. The method was validated by comparing dissipation fluxes with those computed by the eddy correlation method. The agreement between the two is very good, particularly for heat fluxes. Last, it is shown how the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate can be easily calculated, using a single measurement (the attack angle by example), and therefore how turbulent fluxes can be simply calculated from low level airborne measurements.

Observations and Large-Eddy Simulations of Entrainment in the Sheared Sahelian Boundary Layer

At the top of the planetary boundary layer, the entrainment of air, which incorporates dry and warm air from the free troposphere into the boundary layer, is a key process for exchanges with the free troposphere since it controls the growth of the boundary layer. Here, we focus on the semi-arid boundary layer where the entrainment process is analyzed using aircraft observations collected during the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis experiment and large-eddy simulations. The role of the entrainment is specifically enhanced in this region where very large gradients at the planetary boundary-layer top can be found due to the presence of the moist, cold monsoon flow on which the dry, warm Harmattan flow is superimposed. A first large-eddy simulation is designed based on aircraft observations of 5 June 2006 during the transition period between dry conditions and the active monsoon phase. The simulation reproduces the boundary-layer development and dynamics observed on this day. From this specific case, sensitivity tests are carried out to cover a range of conditions observed during seven other flights made in the same transition period in order to describe the entrainment processes in detail. The combination of large-eddy simulations and observations allows us to test the parametrization of entrainment in a mixed-layer model with zero-order and first-order approximations for the entrainment zone. The latter representation of the entrainment zone gives a better fit with the conditions encountered in the Sahelian boundary layer during the transition period because large entrainment thicknesses are observed. The sensitivity study also provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution of shear stress and scalar jumps at the top of the boundary layer in the entrainment process, and to test a relevant parametrization published in the recent literature for a mixed-layer model.

Results of UHF radar observation of the nocturnal low-level jet for wind energy applications

We use two series of eight-month UHF radar observations collected during the dry and wet seasons of AMMA field campaign. The ultimate goal is to do preliminary work to know whether the lowest layers are suitable for wind energy applications. Surface wind is usually weak in West Africa, but the regular occurrence of a nocturnal low level jet (NLLJ) could provide interesting conditions for wind energy. This work is two-fold: it first aims at improving our knowledge about the NLLJ in West Africa regarding its structure and its variability during the year. Then, special attention is paid to the first 200 m agl, to study the possibility to use the sub-jet wind as a source of energy. A set of enhanced radio-soundings is taken to help to understand the dynamics and thermodynamics and to find a way to extrapolate the wind at low level, where the UHF radars do not provide data.

Évolution de notre compréhension du système de mousson ouest-africain

Since the pioneering GATE international field experiment in 1974, little progress had been made on the documentation and understanding of the West African Monsoon system. Ten years after the AMMA project was initiated, how has our knowledge of this monsoon evolved? Although the main actors of this atmosphere ocean-continent coupled system were already known, AMMA has allowed us to study thoroughly the details of the processes at play and their coupling. Starting from a static view of the system, a more dynamical view is now emerging, involving the whole Earth system : the whole African continent, mid-latitudes, the Indian monsoon and the entire tropical belt. This has opened new avenues of investigation into the intraseasonal variability of the West African monsoon.

Low Level Jet Wind Shear in the Sahel

In the Sahel, a vertical wind shear appears in the dry and in the wet seasons. In Niamey, Niger, during the dry season, the period of strong shears is clearly linked to the Nocturnal Low Level Jet (LLJ) since it occurs in a narrow time period around 06H00 UTC at 60% of the cases reach shears which require an alert to the pilots (higher than 4 ms-1 per 100 m). The majority of cases occur during the night with a wind shear direction between 90 and 150° per 100 m, which is shown that it is dangerous for aircraft. In Bamako, Mali, high wind shears represent (higher than 4 ms-1 per 100 m) only 16-22% of the cases and can occur at any time of the day. There are, however, 8% of the cases, the whole day long, when the wind shear can reach more than 6 ms-1 per 100 m. Most of the wind shear directions are also between 0 and 90° per 100 m during the night. This is why the Agency for the safety of aircraft navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) has put in 2004 at Bamako airport an UHF wind profiler radar for monitoring nocturnal strong Low Level Jet wind shear which occur regularly in this airport.