Mesoscale circulation systems and ozone concentrations during ESCOMPTE: a case study from IOP 2b

International audienceThe main objective of ‘Expérience sur Site pour COntraindre les Modèles de Pollution atmosphérique et de Transport d'Emissions' (ESCOMPTE) is to generate a relevant data set for testing and evaluating mesoscale chemistry-transport models (CTMs). During ESCOMPTE, measurements have been performed at numerous surface stations, by radars and lidars, and several aircraft in the planetary boundary layer. The data from these different sources have been merged to obtain a consistent description of the spatial distribution of wind, temperature, humidity, and ozone for the photosmog episode on June 25, 2001 (IOP 2b). On this day, moderate synoptic winds favour the evolution of different mesoscale circulation systems. During daytime, the sea breeze penetrates towards the north in the Rhône valley. As the winds above the sea breeze layer come from the east, polluted air from the metropolitan area of Marseille leads to an increase of ozone at elevated layers above the convective boundary layer (CBL). At the mountainous station of Luberon about 55 km north of Marseille around noon, when the CBL top surpasses the height of the mountain summit, polluted air with ozone concentrations of about 120 ppbv arrived from southerly directions, thus indicating the passage of the city plume of Marseille. At Cadarache and Vinon in the Durance valley, about 60 km inland, the ozone maximum at the surface and at flight level 920 m MSL appears between 14 and 15 UTC. At this time, southwesterly valley winds prevail in the valley, while southerly winds occur above. This finding highlights the height-dependent advection of ozone due to interacting mesoscale circulation systems. These dynamical processes need to be represented adequately in CTMs to deliver a realistic description of the ozone concentration fields

Photochemical pollution episodes during ESCOMPTE 2001 under sea-breeze or synoptic wind conditions

(2-4 février 2005

The ESCOMPTE Program: an overview

In this paper, the “Expérience sur Site pour COntraindre les Modèles de Pollution atmosphérique et de Transport d'Emissions” (ESCOMPTE) program is presented. The ESCOMPTE program is used to produce a relevant set of data for testing and evaluating regional pollution models. It includes high-resolution (in space and time) atmospheric emission inventories and field experiments, and covers an area of 120×120 km, centered over the Marseilles-Berre area in the southeast of France during Summer 2001. This region presents a high occurrence of photochemical pollution events, which result from numerous industrial and urban sources of primary pollutants. From the dynamical characteristics of the area, sea-breeze circulation and channeling effects due to terrain features highly influence the location of the pollutant plumes. ESCOMPTE will provide a highly documented framework for dynamics and chemistry studies.Campaign strategies and experimental set up are described. During the planning phase, existing modeling results helped defining the experimental design. The campaign involved surface measurement networks, remote sensing, ship-borne, balloon-borne, and airplane measurements. Mean standard meteorological parameters and turbulent fluxes, ozone, ozone precursors, photochemically active trace gases, and aerosols were measured. Five intensive observation periods (IOPs) were documented using a wide spectrum of instruments, involving aircraft (7) (one of them equipped with a Doppler lidar, the others for in situ meteorological and chemical measurements), constant volume balloons (33), ozone lidars (5), wind profilers (15 sodars and radars), Doppler scanning lidar (1), radiosonde systems (at 4 locations), instrumented ships (2). In addition to the air quality networks from environmental agencies, 15 supplementary ground stations equipped for chemistry and/or meteorology and/or surface flux measurements, were operational. All instruments were calibrated and compared during a Quality Control/Quality Assurance (QC/QA) week, at the very beginning of the campaign.Fifteen days were intensively documented during five IOPs, referenced as 1, 2a, 2b, 3, and 4. High pollution levels were encountered during sea-breeze conditions observed during IOPs 2b and 3, whereas IOPs 2a and 4 corresponded to moderate wind, and channeled plume regimes. In addition, hourly emissions inventories for all IOPs were established to complete data sets and to finalize the ESCOMPTE database (EDB).Two other projects were associated to ESCOMPTE: urban boundary layer (UBL) and tropospheric water vapor content by GPS tomography (GPS/H2O). They took advantage of the scientific environment provided by ESCOMPTE