Olivier Bock

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.

Hydrological deformation induced by the West African Monsoon: Comparison of GPS, GRACE and loading models

Three-dimensional ground deformation measured with permanent GPS stations in West Africa was used for investigating the hydrological loading deformation associated with Monsoon precipitation. The GPS data were processed within a global network for the 2003–2008 period. Weekly station positions were retrieved with a repeatability (including unmodeled loading effects) of 1–2 mm in the horizontal components and between 2.5 and 6 mm in the vertical component. The annual signal in the vertical component for sites located between 9.6N and 16.7N is in the range 10–15 mm. It is consistent at the 3 mm-level with the annual regional-scale loading deformations estimated from GRACE satellite products and modeled with a combination of hydrological, atmospheric, and nontidal oceanic models. An additional 6 month transient signal was detected in the vertical component of GPS estimates at most of the West African sites. It takes the form of an oscillation occurring between September and March, and reaching a maximum amplitude of 12–16 mm at Ouagadougou (12.5N). The analysis of in situ hydro-geological data revealed a strong coincidence between this transient signal and peak river discharge at three sites located along the Niger River (Timbuktu, Gao, and Niamey). At Ouagadougou, a similar coincidence was found with the seasonal variations of the water table depth. We propose a mechanism to account for this signal that involves a sequence of swelling/shrinking of clays combined with local loading effects associated with flooding of the Niger River.

On the use of GPS tomography to investigate water vapor variability during a Mistral/sea breeze event in southeastern France

Global Positioning System (GPS) tomography analyses of water vapor, complemented by high-resolution numerical simulations are used to investigate a Mistral/sea breeze event in the region of Marseille, France, during the ESCOMPTE experiment. This is the first time GPS tomography has been used to validate the three-dimensional water vapor concentration from numerical simulation, and to analyze a small-scale meteorological event. The high spatial and temporal resolution of GPS analyses provides a unique insight into the evolution of the vertical and horizontal distribution of water vapor during the Mistral/sea-breeze transition.

Correction of Humidity Bias for Vaisala RS80-A Sondes during the AMMA 2006 Observing Period

Abstract During the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (AMMA) program, which included a special observing period that took place over West Africa in 2006, a major effort was devoted to monitor the atmosphere and its water cycle. The radiosonde network was upgraded and enhanced, and GPS receivers deployed. Among all sondes released in the atmosphere, a significant number were Vaisala RS80-A sondes, which revealed a significant dry bias relative to Vaisala RS92 (a maximum of 14% in the lower atmosphere, reaching 20% in the upper levels). This paper makes use of a simple but robust statistical approach to correct the bias. Comparisons against independent GPS data show that the bias is almost removed at night, whereas for daytime conditions, a weak dry bias (5%) still remains. The correction enhances CAPE by a factor of about 4 and, thus, becomes much more in line with expected values over the region.

Global 4DVAR Assimilation and Forecast Experiments Using AMSU Observations over Land. Part II: Impacts of Assimilating Surface-Sensitive Channels on the African Monsoon during AMMA

Observations from Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A and -B (AMSU-A and -B) have been more intensively used over sea than over land because of large uncertainties about the land surface emissivity and the skin temperature. Several methods based on a direct estimation of the land emissivity from satellite observations have been found to be very useful for improving the assimilation of sounding channels over land. Feasibility studies have been conducted within the Meteo-France global assimilation system in order to examine the possibility of assimilating low-level atmospheric observations receiving a contribution from the land surface. The present study reports on three 2-month assimilation and forecast experiments, which include the assimilation of surface-sensitive observations from AMSU-A and -B together with a control experiment, which represents the operational model. The assimilation experiments have been compared with the control, and important changes in the analyzed atmospheric fields and in the precipitation forecasts over parts of the tropics, and especially over West Africa, have been noticed. The experiments seem to emphasize the atmospheric moistening in India, South America, and in West Africa, together with atmospheric drying over Saudi Arabia and northeast Africa. The drying or moistening of the atmosphere has been successfully evaluated using independent measurements from the GPS African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) network. Precipitation and OLR forecasts have also been examined and compared with independent measurements. Physically, the changes result in a better-organized African monsoon with a stronger ITCZ in terms of ascent, vorticity, and precipitation, but there is no northward shift of the monsoon system. Low-level humidity observations have been found to have important impacts on the analysis and to produce positive impacts on forecast scores over the tropics.

Land Water Storage Changes from Ground and Space Geodesy: First Results from the GHYRAF (Gravity and Hydrology in Africa) Experiment

This paper is devoted to the first results from the GHYRAF (Gravity and Hydrology in Africa) experiment conducted since 2008 in West Africa and is aimed at investigating the changes in water storage in different regions sampling a strong rainfall gradient from the Sahara to the monsoon zone. The analysis of GPS vertical displacement in Niamey (Niger) and Djougou (Benin) shows that there is a clear annual signature of the hydrological load in agreement with global hydrology models like GLDAS. The comparison of GRACE solutions in West Africa, and more specifically in the Niger and Lake Chad basins, reveals a good agreement for the large scale annual water storage changes between global hydrology models and space gravity observations. Ground gravity observations done with an FG5 absolute gravimeter also show signals which can be well related to measured changes in soil and ground water. We present the first results for two sites in the Sahelian band (Wankama and Diffa in Niger) and one (Djougou in Benin) in the Sudanian monsoon region related to the recharge–discharge processes due to the monsoonal event in summer 2008 and the following dry season. It is confirmed that ground gravimetry is a useful tool to constrain local water storage changes when associated to hydrological and subsurface geophysical in situ measurements.

West African Monsoon water cycle: 1. A hybrid water budget data set

This study investigates the West African Monsoon water cycle with the help of a new hybrid water budget data set developed within the framework of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses. Surface water and energy fluxes are estimated from an ensemble of land surface model simulations forced with elaborate precipitation and radiation products derived from satellite observations, while precipitable water tendencies are estimated from numerical weather prediction analyses. Vertically integrated atmospheric moisture flux convergence is estimated as a residual. This approach provides an advanced, comprehensive atmospheric water budget, including evapotranspiration, rainfall, and atmospheric moisture flux convergence, together with other surface fluxes such as runoff and net radiation. The annual mean and the seasonal cycle of the atmospheric water budget are presented and the couplings between budget terms are discussed for three climatologically distinct latitudinal bands between 6°N and 20°N. West Africa is shown to be alternatively a net source and sink region of atmospheric moisture, depending on the season (a source during the dry season and a sink during the wet season). Several limiting and controlling factors of the regional water cycle are highlighted, suggesting strong sensitivity to atmospheric dynamics and surface radiation. Some insight is also given into the underlying smaller-scale processes. The relationship between evapotranspiration and precipitation is shown to be very different between the Sahel and the regions more to the south and partly controlled by net surface radiation. Strong correlations are found between precipitation and moisture flux convergence over the whole region from daily to interannual time scales. Causality is also established between monthly mean anomalies. Hence, precipitation anomalies are preceded by moisture flux convergence anomalies and followed by moisture flux divergence and evapotranspiration anomalies. The results are discussed in comparison to other studies.

An Intercomparison of Simulated Rainfall and Evapotranspiration Associated with a Mesoscale Convective System over West Africa

Abstract An evaluation of precipitation and evapotranspiration simulated by mesoscale models is carried out within the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) program. Six models performed simulations of a mesoscale convective system (MCS) observed to cross part of West Africa in August 2005. Initial and boundary conditions are found to significantly control the locations of rainfall at synoptic scales as simulated with either mesoscale or global models. When initialized and forced at their boundaries by the same analysis, all models forecast a westward-moving rainfall structure, as observed by satellite products. However, rainfall is also forecast at other locations where none was observed, and the nighttime northward propagation of rainfall is not well reproduced. There is a wide spread in the rainfall rates across simulations, but also among satellite products. The range of simulated meridional fluctuations of evapotranspiration (E) appears reasonable, but E displays an overly strong zonal sy...

The Impacts of AMMA Radiosonde Data on the French Global Assimilation and Forecast System

Abstract The high vertical density soundings recorded during the 2006 African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) campaign are assimilated into the French numerical weather prediction Action de Recherche Petite Echelle Grande Echelle (ARPEGE) four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) system, with and without a bias correction for relative humidity. Four different experiments are carried out to assess the impacts of the added observations. The analyses and forecasts from these different scenarios are evaluated over western Africa. For the full experiment using all data together with a bias correction, the humidity analysis is in better agreement with surface observations and independent GPS observations than it was for the other experiments. AMMA data also improve the African easterly jet (AEJ) on its southeasterly side, and when they are used with an appropriate bias correction, the daily and monthly averaged precipitation results are in relatively good agreement with the satellite-base...

Impact of the MAP reanalysis on the numerical simulation of the MAP-IOP2a convective system

Numerical simulations of the convective system observed during the MAP IOP2a have been performed with the Meso-NH mesoscale model, using a threefold nesting technique with horizontal mesh-sizes of 32, 8 and 2 km. The reference experiment initialized from the operational ECMWF analysis of 17 September 1999 12 UTC succeeds reasonably well in initiating the convective line over the Alpine foothills and reproducing its propagation towards the East. The sensitivity of these results to the reanalysis products is investigated. In the ECMWF MAP reanalysis, the lower atmosphere above Northern Italy is found considerably drier than in the operational analysis. As a consequence, convection is almost entirely inhibited in the mesoscale simulations based upon the reanalysis. Different sensitivity experiments further highlight the strong dependence of the mesoscale results upon the initial moisture fields.