Observations of Air-Sea interactions in the Gulf of Guinea during the OLACTA-DACCIWA 2016 field campaign

Abstract : Clustered with the summer 2016 DACCIWA (EU FP7) field campaign, the OLACTA project is focused on the role of the air-sea interaction on the southern West-African climate dynamics. This project thus aims at advancing knowledge on the low-level atmospheric circulation in the Eastern Equatorial Atlantic in connection with air-sea interactions in the presence of significant sea-surface temperature (SST) gradients and highly variable background wind conditions. Three flights took place on 2, 7 and 14 of July 2016 on board SAFIRE ATR 42 with roughly 10 hours of flying time in total. The field campaign allowed for airborne measurements of SST that can be compared with satellite observations and observations of boundary layer structure with LIDAR instrument. The regions measured included cooling areas associated with coastal upwelling off the Southern West African coast and warm sea regions often observed to be collocated with regions of offshore afternoon convection, with the SST gradients being a potential source of instability