Water vapor measurements by mobile Raman lidar over the Mediterranean Sea in the framework of HyMeX: application to multi-platform validation of moisture profiles

Julien Totems (1) , Patrick Chazette (1) , Xiaoxia Shangt (1) , Cyrille Flamant (2) , Jean-Christophe Raut (2) , Alexis Doerenbecher (3) , Véronique Ducrocq (3) , Olivier Bock (4) , Fabien Marnas (1)

1 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
2 TROPO - LATMOS
3 CNRM - Centre national de recherches météorologiques
4 LAREG - LAboratoire de REcherche en Géodésie [Paris]

The Water Aerosol Lidar (WALI) system, deployed for 14 weeks during 2012 & 2013 on the island of Menorca, provided the Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean eXperiment (HyMeX) with an opportunity to perform a multi-platform comparison on moisture retrievals at the timescales relevant for extreme precipitation events in the West Mediterranean basin. After calibration, the WALI lidar yields nighttime profiles of water vapor with ~7% accuracy from the ground up to 7 km, and daytime coverage of the lower layers, alongside common aerosol retrievals. It is used to characterize the water vapor profile product given by the IASI instrument on-board MetOp-B, and the fields simulated by the Météo-France AROME-WMED model and the open-source WRF model. IASI is found to be reliable above 1 km altitude, and the two models obtain similar high scores in the middle troposphere; WRF beneficiates from a more accurate modelling of the planetary boundary layer.

Domains: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics [physics.ao-ph]; Climatology; Ocean, Atmosphere

Julien Totems, Patrick Chazette, Xiaoxia Shangt, Cyrille Flamant, Jean-Christophe Raut, et al.. Water vapor measurements by mobile Raman lidar over the Mediterranean Sea in the framework of HyMeX: application to multi-platform validation of moisture profiles . EPJ Web of Conferences, 2016, The 27th International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC 27), 119, pp.26006. ⟨10.1051/epjconf/201611926006⟩. ⟨insu-01176029⟩