CS Toulon / LSEET Université Du Sud Toulon-Var / Météo France for ANR / DGA

Project POAEMM 2012-2013 (prediction of the spatiotemporal variability of the marine aerosols optical properties in coastal and marine areas)

CS Toulon / LSEET Université du Sud Toulon-Var / Météo France for ANR / DGA

The project led by CS Toulon aims to demonstrate the feasibility of predicting the spatiotemporal optical properties of marine aerosols in marine and coastal areas. In order to take into account the development of this environmental phenomenon created by the effect of wind on marine surfaces is carried out by using the coupling of the model MEDEX (LSEET) with the mesoscale NWP model AROME (Météo France). MEDEX estimates marine aerosols granulometric concentrations according to wind speed, relative humidity and fetch provided by AROME.

The project involves three steps. The first step is to insure the semi-automation of the LSEET marine aerosols measurement station on the Porquerolles island (South East of France) which allows to trigger distant measurements from land. A marine aerosols measurement campaign will then be made according to relevant environmental and weather conditions forecasted by Météo France.

This approach allows to improve modeling of marine aerosols in the second step of the project. Based on a substantial number of local measures, the semi-empirical formulations of MEDEX will be modified to better reflect the oceanic and meteorological conditions.

The final step will be the implementation of the feasibility model integrating MEDEX and AROME.

From the spatial and temporal variations of the different weather fields provided by AROME and the granulometric spectra provided by MEDEX, the horizontal distribution of optical properties of marine aerosols will be estimated.

An experimental validation campaign based on measurements of luminance spatial variation from blackbody will be achieved to demonstrate improvements on the

prediction of the aerosol optical properties through the coupling between MEDEX and AROME. This new approach should help to improve knowledge of the optronic sensors performance in maritime environment.