High resolution numerical modeling of low level wind-shear over the Nice-Cote d'Azur airport

Small scale turbulence hazards such as wind shear are major airport security issues. Accurate predictions of those phenomena would increase air traffic. In this context, a numerical study is undertaken at the Nice-Cote d'Azur international airport (France) where low level wind shear and turbulence are induced by a number of small scale and synoptic scale phenomena (land-sea breezes, mountains winds).

A grid-nested version of the Météo-France research mesoscale model MésoNH (Lafore et al. 1998) is run at kilometric resolution over the area of interest.

For selected meteorological situations, we first study the capability of this model to reproduce those hazards. We compare results to ground observations data and particularly the PCL1300 Doppler wind profiler installed on the airport. The atmospheric and terrain parameters responsible of the wind shear and wind reverse are investigated.