As a follow-up study on important issues highlighted by the first MERMOZ (Montreal-96 Experiment on Regional Mixing and Ozone) campaign in 1996, the field phase of MERMOZ-II was held in August 1997. The study focused on certain important aspects of the convective boundary layer (CBL), such as the influence of soil moisture on CBL evolution and entrainment processes near the CBL top.
The field program took place at the Quebec-Ontario border and featured measurements with the NRC Twin Otter research aircraft and supporting sites with ground based and remote sensing instruments. A rural site near Montreal was chosen for its homogeneous flat terrain with common land use, and equipped with a radar wind profiler, a lidar, several meteorological and radiometric towers, and a surface flux tower. Special upper-air soundings were also made in support of the aircraft program. A ground-based soil moisture and precipitation measurement program was conducted over the MERMOZ-II area, together with airborne microwave radiometer measurements to provide detailed soil moisture analyses.
An overview of the MERMOZ-II field program will be presented together with a few interesting examples from the preliminary analysis of the results.