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Conference Papers Year : 2015

Observation of low-level wind reversals in the Gulf of Lion area and their impact on the water vapour distribution and variability

Abstract

Water vapour measurements from a ground-based Raman lidar and an airborne differential absorption lidar, complemented by high resolution numerical simulations from two mesoscale models (AROME-WMED and Meso-NH), have been considered to investigate three transition events from Mistral/Tramontane to southerly marine flow taking place in the Gulf of Lion area in the time frame September-October 2012, during the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment Special Observation Period 1. Low-level wind reversals associated with these transitions are found to have a strong impact on water vapour transport, leading to a large variability of the water vapour vertical and horizontal distributions. The high spatial and temporal resolutions of the lidar data allow monitoring the time evolution of the three-dimensional water vapour field during these transitions from predominantly northerly Mistral/Tramontane flow to a predominantly southerly flow, permitting to identify the quite sharp separation between these flows, which is also well captured by the mesoscale models. Water vapour measurements from the ground-based lidar are complemented by particle backscatter measurements from the same system, which allow also revealing the significant variability in the aerosol and cloud fields associated with these transition events. Results will be illustrated and discussed at the Conference.
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Dates and versions

insu-01206611 , version 1 (01-10-2015)

Identifiers

  • HAL Id : insu-01206611 , version 1

Cite

Paolo Di Girolamo, Cyrille Flamant, Marco Cacciani, Evelyne Richard, Véronique Ducrocq, et al.. Observation of low-level wind reversals in the Gulf of Lion area and their impact on the water vapour distribution and variability. 9th HyMex Workshop, Sep 2015, Mykonos, Greece. ⟨insu-01206611⟩
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