The second Megha-Tropiques validation/preparation field programme funded by CNES, the French space Agency, took place in Gan (the Maldives) from 15/11/11 to 15/12/12. During that month the team, including people from LATMOS, LaMP, LMD, LaCy, Legos and SAFIRE (operating the F20 aircraft), sampled some very exciting convective systems over the Indian Ocean aiming to better understand mechanisms which initiate precipitation. The underlying idea was to be able to characterise the ice part above rain in order to develop and validate parameterisations for Megha-Tropiques rain retrieval technique, BRAIN. The French Falcon 20 took on board several in-situ microphysical probes (FSSP, 2DS, CPI, PIP, 2DP, Nevzorov) which were dedicated to sampling hydrometeors (deriving ice particles distribution as a function of their size and shape) and quantify total water content. In addition to that, the airborne 95GHz cloud radar RASTA (some quicklooks are available here, under the data link: http://rali.projet.latmos.ipsl.fr/ ) was operating in the very novel six-beam configuration allowing one to retrieve microphysical ice-cloud properties and 3D dynamics of clouds.It was therefore possible to cover ice properties from the fine scale to regional scale by combining these measurements. The team also made the most of the deployed instruments from our US/Japanese colleagues for the DYNAMO (Dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation) campaign, while the F20 was flying inside the polarimetric radar area. A successful collaboration with the NOAA P3 aircraft on 8th December 2011 saw, for the first time, some convective systems sampled simultaneously by ground-based radars (SPOL-SMARTR-KAZR), airborne radars at 95GHz and 10GHz and in-situ measurements. For more information, Please contact Dr Julien Delanoe.
Related Posts
29nov -1er dec 2017: 3eme réunion GDR Megha-Tropiques- June 2017: Release of the TAPEER-BRAIN product
- oct 2016:CNES and ISRO signed the four-year extension of the Megha-Tropiques mission
- Feb 2016: Collaboration between the MT french science team and the Indian Institue of Science
- Feb 2016: Publication of the Megha-Tropiques Technical Memorandum n°7
- September 2015: Release of relative humidity profile products