METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS PREVAILING DURING THE HYGRA-CD CAMPAIGN IN THE ATHENS BASIN: AN OVERVIEW

HygrA-CD (From Hygroscopic Aerosols to Cloud Droplets) was an international field campaign in May-June 2014, bringing together different instruments and expertise for the purpose of understanding more about the impact of aerosols and clouds on weather and climate. It is a novel attempt to strengthen the links between the remote sensing and in-situ observation communities, while making use of established know-how on numerical weather prediction and atmospheric modeling. Objectives of the campaign will bring some answers and challenges to the current uncertainties of the climate system, especially on the role of aerosols/CCNs in cloud formation processes.

The HygrA-CD campaign was planned in the Greater Athens Area (GAA), Greece during summer 2014, when air mass convection is very likely to take place, as the atmosphere is still not totally dry. At this specific period of the year, we observed several Saharan dust outbreak events over Athens (i.e., synoptic winds from the south), but also air masses carrying mixtures of urban/continental and marine aerosols, due to the influence of the Etesian winds to the wind circulation in GAA (synoptic winds from the northeast).

In the present work, a general overview is given of the meteorological conditions prevalent during the field campaign. The main regimes present were Saharan dust events, Etesian wind flows, and continental transports. The overview includes a combination of remote sensing and in-situ observations, along with simulations from a mesoscale meteorological model (Advanced Weather Research and Forecasting, WRF-ARW).