Thursday, 20 June 2002
Characterization of the 28 june 2001 Mistral event during the ESCOMPTE field experiment
This analysis focuses on the 28 june 2001 Mistral event that was controled by an Alpine lee cyclone over the Tyrrhenian Sea (between Sardinia and continental Italy). The Mistral flow was documented in the framework of the ESCOMPTE program (see http://medias.obs-mip.fr/escompte) by in-situ and ground-based remote sensors (particularly by a Doppler lidar) that could describe in details the time evolution of the event and by the airborne French-German Doppler lidar WIND that flew along- and across-Mistral axis legs with a horizontal resolution of about 5 km. These data provide detailed information on (1) the channeling region
by the Rhone valley; (2) a zone of strong deceleration at the land-sea transition where the Mistral vertical extent decreased and (3) the region over the Mediterranean where the Mistral speed increased and deepened again. The
across-Mistral axis leg evidences the lateral extent of the Mistral and the shape of the smooth transition between the jet and the the sheltered zone. The structural characteristics in time and space are discussed with respect to the vertical stratification (temperature, humidity,...) and intensity of the turbulence.
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