Impact of synthetic space-borne NO2 observations from the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5P missions on tropospheric NO2 analyses

We present an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) dedicated to the evaluation of the added value of the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5P missions for tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Sentinel-4 is a geostationary (GEO) mission covering the European continent, providing observations with high temporal resolution (hourly). Sentinel-5P is a low Earth orbit (LEO) mission providing daily observations with a global coverage. The OSSE experiment has been carefully designed, with separate models for the simulation of observations and for the assimilation experiments and with conservative estimates of the total observation uncertainties. In the experiment we simulate Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5P tropospheric NO2 columns and surface ozone concentrations at 7 by 7 km resolution over Europe for two 3-month summer and winter periods. The synthetic observations are based on a nature run (NR) from a chemistry transport model (MOCAGE) and error estimates using instrument characteristics. We assimilate the simulated observations into a chemistry transport model (LOTOS-EUROS) independent of the NR to evaluate their impact on modelled NO2 tropospheric columns and surface concentrations. The results are compared to an operational system where only ground-based ozone observations are ingested. Both instruments have an added value to analysed NO2 columns and surface values, reflected in decreased biases and improved correlations. The Sentinel-4 NO2 observations with hourly temporal resolution benefit modelled NO2 analyses throughout the entire day where the daily Sentinel-5P NO2 observations have a slightly lower impact that lasts up to 3–6 h after overpass. The evaluated benefits may be even higher in reality as the applied error estimates were shown to be higher than actual errors in the now operational Sentinel-5P NO2 products. We show that an accurate representation of the NO2 profile is crucial for the benefit of the column observations on surface values. The results support the need for having a combination of GEO and LEO missions for NO2 analyses in view of the complementary benefits of hourly temporal resolution (GEO, Sentinel-4) and global coverage (LEO, Sentinel-5P)

Construction optimale de réseaux fixes et mobiles pour la surveillance opérationnelle des rejets accidentels atmosphériques

The global context of my PhD thesis work is the optimization of air pollution monitoring networks, but more specifically it concerns the monitoring of accidental releases of radionuclides in air. The optimization problem of air quality measuring networks has been addresses in the literature. However, it has not been addresses in the context of surveillance of accidental atmospheric releases. The first part of my thesis addresses the optimization of a permanent network of monitoring of radioactive aerosols in the air, covering France. The second part concerns the problem of targeting of observations in case of an accidental release of radionuclides from a nuclear plant.Mon travail de thèse se situe dans le contexte général de l'optimisation de réseaux de mesure de pollution atmosphérique, mais plus spécifiquement centré sur la surveillance des rejets accidentels de radionucléides dans l'air. Le problème d'optimisation de réseaux de mesure de la qualité de l'air a été abordé dans la littérature. En revanche, il n'a pas été traité dans le contexte de la surveillance des rejets accidentels atmosphériques. Au cours de cette thèse nous nous sommes intéressés dans un premier temps à l'optimisation du futur réseau de télésurveillance des aérosols radioactifs dans l'air, le réseau DESCARTES. Ce réseau sera mis en œuvre par l'Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), afin de renforcer son dispositif de surveillance de radionucléides en France métropolitaine. Plus précisément, l'objectif assigné à ce réseau est de pouvoir mesurer des rejets atmosphériques de radionucléides, provenant de l'ensemble des installations nucléaires françaises ou étrangères. Notre principal rôle était donc de formuler des recommandations vis-à-vis aux besoins exprimés par l'IRSN, concernant la construction optimale du futur réseau. Á cette fin, l'approche que nous avons considérée pour optimiser le réseau (le futur réseau), vise à maximiser sa capacité à extrapoler les concentrations d'activité mesurées sur les stations du réseau sur tout le domaine d'intérêt. Cette capacité est évaluée quantitativement à travers une fonction de coût, qui mesure les écarts entre les champs de concentrations extrapolés et ceux de références. Ces derniers représentent des scénarios de dispersion accidentels provenant des 20 centrales nucléaires françaises et, calculés sur une année de météorologie. Nos résultats soulignent notamment l'importance du choix de la fonction coût dans la conception optimale du futur réseau de surveillance. Autrement dit, la configuration spatiale du réseau optimal s'avère extrêmement sensible à la forme de la fonction coût utilisée. La deuxième partie de mon travail s'intéresse essentiellement au problème du ciblage d'observations en cas d'un rejet accidentel de radionucléides, provenant d'une centrale nucléaire. En effet, en situation d'urgence, une prévision très précise en temps réel de la dispersion du panache radioactif est vivement exigée par les décideurs afin d'entreprendre des contre-mesures plus appropriées. Cependant, la précision de la prévision du panache est très dépendante de l'estimation du terme source de l'accident. À cet égard, les techniques d'assimilation de données et de modélisation inverse peuvent être appliquées. Toutefois, le nuage radioactif peut être localement très mince et pourrait s'échapper à une partie importante du réseau local, installé autour de la centrale nucléaire. Ainsi, un déploiement de stations de mesure mobiles en suivant l'évolution du nuage pourrait contribuer à améliorer l'estimation du terme source. À cet effet, nous avons exploré la possibilité d'améliorer la qualité de la prévision numérique du panache radioactif, en couplant une stratégie de déploiement optimal de stations mobiles avec un schéma d'assimilation de données pour la reconstruction séquentielle du panache radioactif. Nos résultats montrent que le gain d'information apporté par les observations ciblées est nettement mieux que l'information apportée par les observations fixes

Construction optimale de réseaux fixes et mobiles pour la surveillance opérationnelle des rejets accidentels atmosphériques

The global context of my PhD thesis work is the optimization of air pollution monitoring networks, but more specifically it concerns the monitoring of accidental releases of radionuclides in air. The optimization problem of air quality measuring networks has been addresses in the literature. However, it has not been addresses in the context of surveillance of accidental atmospheric releases. The first part of my thesis addresses the optimization of a permanent network of monitoring of radioactive aerosols in the air, covering France. The second part concerns the problem of targeting of observations in case of an accidental release of radionuclides from a nuclear plant.Mon travail de thèse se situe dans le contexte général de l'optimisation de réseaux de mesure de pollution atmosphérique, mais plus spécifiquement centré sur la surveillance des rejets accidentels de radionucléides dans l'air. Le problème d'optimisation de réseaux de mesure de la qualité de l'air a été abordé dans la littérature. En revanche, il n'a pas été traité dans le contexte de la surveillance des rejets accidentels atmosphériques. Au cours de cette thèse nous nous sommes intéressés dans un premier temps à l'optimisation du futur réseau de télésurveillance des aérosols radioactifs dans l'air, le réseau DESCARTES. Ce réseau sera mis en œuvre par l'Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), afin de renforcer son dispositif de surveillance de radionucléides en France métropolitaine. Plus précisément, l'objectif assigné à ce réseau est de pouvoir mesurer des rejets atmosphériques de radionucléides, provenant de l'ensemble des installations nucléaires françaises ou étrangères. Notre principal rôle était donc de formuler des recommandations vis-à-vis aux besoins exprimés par l'IRSN, concernant la construction optimale du futur réseau. Á cette fin, l'approche que nous avons considérée pour optimiser le réseau (le futur réseau), vise à maximiser sa capacité à extrapoler les concentrations d'activité mesurées sur les stations du réseau sur tout le domaine d'intérêt. Cette capacité est évaluée quantitativement à travers une fonction de coût, qui mesure les écarts entre les champs de concentrations extrapolés et ceux de références. Ces derniers représentent des scénarios de dispersion accidentels provenant des 20 centrales nucléaires françaises et, calculés sur une année de météorologie. Nos résultats soulignent notamment l'importance du choix de la fonction coût dans la conception optimale du futur réseau de surveillance. Autrement dit, la configuration spatiale du réseau optimal s'avère extrêmement sensible à la forme de la fonction coût utilisée. La deuxième partie de mon travail s'intéresse essentiellement au problème du ciblage d'observations en cas d'un rejet accidentel de radionucléides, provenant d'une centrale nucléaire. En effet, en situation d'urgence, une prévision très précise en temps réel de la dispersion du panache radioactif est vivement exigée par les décideurs afin d'entreprendre des contre-mesures plus appropriées. Cependant, la précision de la prévision du panache est très dépendante de l'estimation du terme source de l'accident. À cet égard, les techniques d'assimilation de données et de modélisation inverse peuvent être appliquées. Toutefois, le nuage radioactif peut être localement très mince et pourrait s'échapper à une partie importante du réseau local, installé autour de la centrale nucléaire. Ainsi, un déploiement de stations de mesure mobiles en suivant l'évolution du nuage pourrait contribuer à améliorer l'estimation du terme source. À cet effet, nous avons exploré la possibilité d'améliorer la qualité de la prévision numérique du panache radioactif, en couplant une stratégie de déploiement optimal de stations mobiles avec un schéma d'assimilation de données pour la reconstruction séquentielle du panache radioactif. Nos résultats montrent que le gain d'information apporté par les observations ciblées est nettement mieux que l'information apportée par les observations fixes

Targeting of observations for accidental atmospheric release monitoring

International audienceIn the event of an accidental atmospheric release of radionuclides from a nuclear power plant, accurate real-time forecasting of the activity concentrations of radionuclides is acutely required by the decision makers for the preparation of adequate countermeasures. Yet, the accuracy of the forecasted plume is highly dependent on the source term estimation. Inverse modelling and data assimilation techniques should help in that respect. However the plume can locally be thin and could avoid a significant part of the radiological monitoring network surrounding the plant. Deploying mobile measuring stations following the accident could help to improve the source term estimation. In this paper, a method is proposed for the sequential reconstruction of the plume, by coupling a sequential data assimilation algorithm based on inverse modelling with an observation targeting strategy. The targeting design strategy consists in seeking the optimal locations of the mobile monitors at time t + 1 based on all available observations up to time t. The performance of the sequential assimilation with and without targeting of observations has been assessed in a realistic framework. It focuses on the Bugey nuclear power plant (France) and its surroundings within 50 km from the plant. The existing surveillance network is used and realistic observational errors are assumed. The targeting scheme leads to a better estimation of the source term as well as the activity concentrations in the domain. The mobile stations tend to be deployed along plume contours, where activity concentration gradients are important. It is shown that the information carried by the targeted observations is very significant, as compared to the information content of fixed observations. A simple test on the impact of model error from meteorology shows that the targeting strategy is still very useful in a more uncertain context

Design of a monitoring network over France in case of a radiological accidental release

The Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (France) is planning the set-up of an automatic nuclear aerosol monitoring network over the French territory. Each of the stations will be able to automatically sample the air aerosol content and provide activity concentration measurements on several radionuclides. This should help monitor the French and neighbouring countries nuclear power plants set. It would help evaluate the impact of a radiological incident occurring at one of these nuclear facilities. This paper is devoted to the spatial design of such a network. Here, any potential network is judged on its ability to extrapolate activity concentrations measured on the network stations over the whole domain. The performance of a network is quantitatively assessed through a cost function that measures the discrepancy between the extrapolation and the true concentration fields. These true fields are obtained through the computation of a database of dispersion accidents over one year of meteorology and originating from 20 French nuclear sites. A close to optimal network is then looked for using a simulated annealing optimisation. The results emphasise the importance of the cost function in the design of a network aimed at monitoring an accidental dispersion. Several choices of norm used in the cost function are studied and give way to different designs. The influence of the number of stations is discussed. A comparison with a purely geometric approach which does not involve simulations with a chemistry-transport model is performed. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Model reduction via principal component truncation for the optimal design of atmospheric monitoring networks

International audienceIRSN is planning to renovate the French nuclear monitoring network. This renovated network should be able to forecast accurately the accidental plume by using only measures of this network. In this presentation, a numerically efficient methodology for the optimal design of monitoring networks is proposed. In this method, a large database of dispersion accidents over one year of meteorology and from 20 French nuclear sites is built and a cost function measures the ability of a potential network to provide measurements in order to reconstruct any accidental plume from the database. We introduce methods based on principal component analysis to optimally reduce this database and consequently decrease significantly CPU time. Then, the reduced optimisation method is applied to suggest an optimal strategy for the sequential deployment of the network. Finally, we propose the set-up of networks which take into account foreign potential radiological sources in Europe and French density population

New approach for the damage mechanisms identification in the glass-epoxy composites

International audienceThe aim of this work is to introduce a new approach for clustering the acoustic emission data occurring during the fracture process of glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) plates. In particular, we have developed signal processing techniques based on continues wavelet transform in order to isolate the acoustic signature corresponding to each damage mechanism (fibre breakage, matrix cracking, etc.). Models are then established in the form of dictionaries, whose elements are the waveforms collected during specific experiments in which the creates damage mechanisms are well known. The conducted experiments allowed isolating not only strongly excited mechanisms but also those whose amplitude is below the detection threshold (which are usually considered as noise and hence systematically eliminated by using automatic threshold). This valuable decrease in the threshold (from 30dB to 25dB) will be used in the study of precursor mechanisms as well as slow dynamic experiments

Evaluation of water vapour assimilation in the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere by a chemical transport model

The present analysis deals with one of the most debated aspects of the studies on the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS), namely the budget of water vapour (H$_{2}$O) at the tropical tropopause. Within the French project “Multiscale water budget in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere in the TROpics” (TRO-pico), a global-scale analysis has been set up based on space-borne observations, models and assimilation techniques. The MOCAGEVALENTINA assimilation tool has been used to assimilate the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) version 3.3 H$_{2}$O measurements within the 316–5 hPa range from August 2011 to March 2013 with an assimilation window of 1 h. Diagnostics based on observations minus analysis and forecast are developed to assess the quality of the assimilated H$_{2}$O fields. Comparison with an independent source of H$_{2}$O measurements in the UTLS based on the space-borne Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) observations and with meteorological ARPEGE analyses is also shown. Sensitivity studies of the analysed fields have been performed by (1) considering periods when no MLS measurements are available and (2) using H$_{2}$O data from another MLS version (4.2). The studies have been performed within three different spaces in time and space coincidences with MLS (hereafter referred to as MLS space) and MIPAS (MIPAS space) observations and with the model (model space) outputs and at three different levels: 121 hPa (upper troposphere), 100 hPa (tropopause) and 68 hPa (lower stratosphere) in January and February 2012. In the MLS space, the analyses behave consistently with the MLS observations from the upper troposphere to the lower stratosphere. In the model space, the analyses are wetter than the reference atmosphere as represented by ARPEGE and MLS in the upper troposphere (121 hPa) and around the tropopause (100 hPa), but are consistent with MLS and MIPAS in the lower stratosphere (68 hPa). In the MIPAS space, the sensitivity and the vertical resolution of the MIPAS data set at 121 and 100 hPa prevent assessment of the behaviour of the analyses at 121 and 100 hPa, particularly over intense convective areas as the South American, the African and the Maritime continents but, in the lower stratosphere (68 hPa), the analyses are very consistent with MIPAS. Sensitivity studies show the improvement on the H$_{2}$O analyses in the tropical UTLS when assimilating space-borne measurements of better quality, particularly over the convective areas

Impact of synthetic space-borne NO2 observations from the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5P missions on tropospheric NO2 analyses

We present an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) dedicated to the evaluation of the added value of the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5P missions for tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Sentinel-4 is a geostationary (GEO) mission covering the European continent, providing observations with high temporal resolution (hourly). Sentinel-5P is a low Earth orbit (LEO) mission providing daily observations with a global coverage. The OSSE experiment has been carefully designed, with separate models for the simulation of observations and for the assimilation experiments and with conservative estimates of the total observation uncertainties. In the experiment we simulate Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5P tropospheric NO2 columns and surface ozone concentrations at 7 by 7 km resolution over Europe for two 3-month summer and winter periods. The synthetic observations are based on a nature run (NR) from a chemistry transport model (MOCAGE) and error estimates using instrument characteristics. We assimilate the simulated observations into a chemistry transport model (LOTOS-EUROS) independent of the NR to evaluate their impact on modelled NO2 tropospheric columns and surface concentrations. The results are compared to an operational system where only ground-based ozone observations are ingested. Both instruments have an added value to analysed NO2 columns and surface values, reflected in decreased biases and improved correlations. The Sentinel-4 NO2 observations with hourly temporal resolution benefit modelled NO2 analyses throughout the entire day where the daily Sentinel-5P NO2 observations have a slightly lower impact that lasts up to 3–6 h after overpass. The evaluated benefits may be even higher in reality as the applied error estimates were shown to be higher than actual errors in the now operational Sentinel-5P NO2 products. We show that an accurate representation of the NO2 profile is crucial for the benefit of the column observations on surface values. The results support the need for having a combination of GEO and LEO missions for NO2 analyses in view of the complementary benefits of hourly temporal resolution (GEO, Sentinel-4) and global coverage (LEO, Sentinel-5P)

Accessory spinal nerve damage during a cervical lymph node biopsy: case report

The lesion of the accessory spinal nerve is often of iatrogenic origin. We report the case of an injury after a right jugulocarotid lymph node biopsy. A 30-year-old patient was referred for the treatment of right cervical lymphadenopathy suspected of tuberculosis. After the intervention and confirmation of tuberculosis diagnosis, the patient presented a functional impotence of the right shoulder and swarming of the right hand. The clinical examination found an active limitation of the shoulder, and a wasting of the upper bundle of the right trapezius muscle and the sternocleidomastoid. The EMG showed axonotmesis of the accessory spinal nerve and the MRI an amyotrophy of the trapezius with denervation edema. A simple rehabilitation has been scheduled. Damage of the accessory spinal nerve most often occurs after local surgery. EMG is essential for diagnosis. Rehabilitation is the first therapeutic option. Surgery can be considered if it fails. The surgeons must consider the protection of the accessory spinal nerve in case of cervical lymph node surgery