Meteosat and ground-based optical measurements of desert dust within European project MEDUSE

François Dulac (1) , Eric Hamonou (2) , X. Schneider (1) , C. Moulin (2) , Patrick Chazette (2) , Gian Luigi Liberti (3) , Dimitri Paronis (1) , C. Lambert (1) , Michel Legrand (4) , J.B. Defossez (4) , Dimitrios Balis (5) , Alexandros Papayannis (6) , Gérard Ancellet (7) , Nikolaos Mihalopoulos (8)

1 Centre des Faibles Radioactivités
2 LMCE - Laboratoire de Modélisation du Climat et de l'Environnement
3 ISAC - CNR Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate
4 LOA - Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique - UMR 8518
5 Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics [Thessaloniki]
6 NTUA - National Technical University of Athens [Athens]
7 SA - Service d'aéronomie
8 ECPL - Environmental Chemical Processes Laboratory [Heraklion]

We present here an overview of our remote sensing studies of African dust in the Mediterranean region, performed in the frame of the European MEDUSE (Mediterranean DUSt Experiment). The data used include images from Meteosat VIS and IR channels, Sun photometer measurements of the aerosol optical thickness at three coastal stations, and lidar profiling of the aerosol vertical distribution. Operational products distributed daily from Meteosat data are presented. Those are a dust quick-look, and maps of a dust index over land and of the dust optical thickness over ocean. Monitoring of the spectral aerosol optical thickness using Sun photometer measurements shows relatively large background values due to submicronic particles and allows us to test our Meteosat inversion of dust optical thickness. Lidar measurements show that dust particles are present in well identified layers above the atmospheric boundary layer, up to 4-6 km in altitude. A case study of dust transport over the eastern Mediterranean combining Meteosat, Sun photometer and lidar data is discussed.

Domaines: Océan, Atmosphère; Interfaces continentales, environnement

François Dulac, Eric Hamonou, X. Schneider, C. Moulin, Patrick Chazette, et al.. Meteosat and ground-based optical measurements of desert dust within European project MEDUSE. Meteorological Satellites Users Conference, EUMETSAT, Sep 1997, bruxelles, Belgium. pp.549-556. ⟨hal-03385227⟩