CORAL

COllocated wind and aerosol pRofiles of AeoLus for the investigation of ocean sea-salt emissions

What is CORAL

Sea-salt aerosols emission is governed by various physical processes, with a strong dependence on wind. We propose the implementation of the ESA-Aeolus wind and aerosol profiles, on parallel with groundbased observations collected in the framework of the ESA-ASKOS campaign, the outcomes of the ESA-LIVAS database and the use of regional scale atmospheric models, to investigate the particular mechanisms that are involved in the production of open sea marine particles.

Proposed Work

The proposed work has been structured in several discrete Work Packages (WP)

(WP1000) Satellite-based Earth Observation of wind profiles and marine aerosols
(WP2000) Exploitation of ASKOS Campaign optical products
(WP3000) Model assimilation of Aeolus wind profiles and evaluation of marine aerosol emissions
(WP4000) Management and reporting
(WP5000) Synthesis and recommendations for future improvements

  • Satellite-based Earth Observation of wind profiles and marine aerosol

    The aim of the ESA-Aeolus satellite mission is to provide global observations of wind profiles with resolution within the requirements of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) acquired by the ALADIN (Paffrath et al., 2009) Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL). ALADIN is capable of deriving the Horizontal Line-of-Sight (HLOS) wind component with horizontal (90km) and vertical (500/1000m in the lower troposphere) resolution that satisfies the accuracy needed in studies related to atmospheric dynamics and processes relevant to climate variability (e.g. wind-related marine aerosol emissions). In addition, ALADIN is capable of deriving aerosol optical parameters. In the case of marine aerosols, the almost spherical shape accounts for low depolarization of the transmitted radiation, thus minimizing the backscatter, extinction and Lidar Ratio (LR) effects resulting from the lack of depolarization measurement capabilities of Aeolus. In WP1100 Aeolus profiles of wind speed and aerosol extinction/backscatter coefficient at 355nm during the ESAASKOS campaign and over the PANGEA Observatory in Greece will be collected and analysed. In WP1200, we will implement CALIPSO in order to derive CALIOP marine aerosol climatology over remote oceanic regions. Both the derived collocated Aeolus profiles with ASKOS/PANGEA ground-based observation and the CALIOP marine aerosol climatology will be used to assess the performance of the ALADIN aerosol optical products (WP1300), and at a later phase of the proposed project, for the assessment of model marine aerosol emissions (WP3300 & WP3400).

  • Exploitation of ASKOS Campaign optical products

    As part of the Aeolus foreseen Cal/Val activities, a Tropical Validation campaign is organized by ESA and NOA on JuneJuly 2020 at Cape Verde. The campaign is called ASKOS, named as such after the Greek word for the windbag of Aeolus, the God of the winds. ASKOS will deploy advanced instrumentation over Cape Verde to provide unprecedented observations of high quality and accuracy for the wind and aerosol component of Aeolus in order to provide reference values for the Cal/Val of the mission. WP2100 includes participation in the ESA-ASKOS Campaign and WP2200 the derivation of the collocated with the Aeolus overpasses optical products from the ASKOS Campaign and the PANGEA Observatory. The derived Aeolus aerosol profiles will be used in WP1300 (Assessment of Aeolus profiles) and WP3300 (Validation of model emissions of marine aerosol - Implementation of ASKOS).

  • Model assimilation of Aeolus wind profiles and evaluation of marine aerosol emission

    The Aeolus mission provides for the first time the ability to obtain simultaneous and collocated profiles of wind speed and aerosol extinction coefficient, backscatter coefficient, and lidar ratio at 355 nm. This will give us the opportunity to investigate the correlation between wind and ocean sea spray production and improve the corresponding parameterizations in atmospheric models. First, the Aeolus wind retrievals will be assimilated in atmospheric model in order to improve the simulation of wind properties. Second, the impact of wind assimilation on marine particle production over the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean will be assessed through comparisons with the corresponding Cape-Verde (ASKOS), Antikythera (PANGEA) and CALIPSO marine data.

  • Management and Reporting

    Overall management and coordination of the project, in accordance with the terms of the signed contract.

    The following tasks will be specifically performed:

    Coordination of the activities of the project.

    Management of the legal, contractual, financial and administrative issues of the project.

    Distribution of input/output data among the WPs accomplished by different WP.

    Collection of reports; submission of the appropriate documents to the Agency.

    Calling and chairing technical meetings.

    Review and assessment on all the technical/research activities accomplished.

    Support to all the foreseen meetings planned in the frame of this contract.

  • Synthesis and recommendations for future improvements

    Synthesis of WP1000, WP2000 and WP3000 in a single study on the investigation of possible improvements in marine particle considerations for atmospheric models using Aeolus wind velocities, in a scientific peer-review journal of high impact factor.

Our Team

Vassilis Amiridis (VA), born 1971, received his B.Sc. in Physics, M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1998, 2000 and 2006, respectively. Since 2006, VA is a Researcher IAASARS/NOA in Greece. He is working on climate research and he focuses on the impact of atmospheric aerosols and clouds on radiation and extreme weather. His research is mainly based on advanced groundbased and space-borne remote sensing observations (passive and active remote sensing techniques) and theoretical models. VA has participated in 34 research projects and experimental campaigns, in 6 of which as coordinator and 4 as principal investigator for IAASARS/NOA. He has more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and his work received more than 1900 citations from third-party (h-index = 28, source: ISI Web of Knowledge). VA is leading the ReACT Atmospheric Remote Sensing group in IAASARS/NOA. He is a member of the editorial board of EGU’s Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Journal (Copernicus Publications, Impact Factor = 3.2) and he is active reviewer in ~25 scientific Journals in his field. VA is responsible for the operation and data exploitation of the 24/7 PollyXT sophisticated lidar system, and member of EARLINET. He is in charge of the operations for the cal/val program of ESA for Aeolus and EarthCARE in Greece. His lidar-related activities have been acknowledged by the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET), which has elected VA as a council member for the periods 2012-2016 and 2016- 2020. Moreover, VA acted as the Greek National Delegate for the GMES/COPERNICUS Committee for the period 2014- 2017. In 2016, VA received the ERC Consolidator Grant for establishing high-level atmospheric research in the geophysical observatory of Antikythera, a unique infrastructure that is developed to study desert dust dynamics, transport and interaction with radiation.
Antonis Gkikas graduated in 2004 from the Natural Resources and Environmental Engineering Department of the Technological Education Institute of Crete. In 2007, he received his MSc degree in Meteorology, Climatology and Atmospheric Physics and his PhD thesis in 2012 dealt with the study of aerosol episodes in the Mediterranean basin. Both MSc and PhD studies have been accomplished in the Laboratory of Meteorology of the Physics Department at the University of Ioannina (Greece). His main scientific interests lie in the field of aerosol science, and more specifically on aerosol optical/physical properties based on satellite and ground observations, on the assessment of dust radiative effects and their associated impacts on atmospheric processes. During his research career, he has participated in 11 research projects and in 21 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (Citations: 320, h-index=10, source ISI Web of Knowledge). In 2014, he awarded with an individual Marie-Curie FP7-PEOPLE-IEF scholarship (MDRAF project) and worked as a postdoctoral researcher, for two years (2014-2016), in the Earth Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC, Spain). During the period 2017-2019, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow (DUST-GLASS project) at IAASARS/NOA in the framework of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2016). In 2019, he joined the research team of the ERC project D-TECT.
Stavros Solomos, born in 1976, received his BSc in Physics, MSc in Environmental Physics/Meteorology and PhD in Meteorology/Atmospheric Modeling from the University of Athens, Greece in 2001, 2003 and 2011 respectively. Since 2013, he is a postdoctoral researcher at IAASARS/NOA. During 2006-2013, he worked as research associate at the Atmospheric Modeling and Weather Forecasting Group at the University of Athens. His fields of expertise include climate change and impacts on regional weather, severe atmospheric phenomena, direct and indirect aerosol effects in the atmosphere, air pollution, dispersion modeling, and satellite data assimilation.
Emmanouil Proestakis graduated from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) - Greece (2011). He received his MSc in the field of “Environmental Physics” from the Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) of the University of Bremen – Germany (2013). In early 2018 he acquired his PhD diploma on the field of atmospheric remote sensing from space for depicting the aerosol connection with atmospheric electricity from the University of Patras (UoP) – Greece. Since then Emmanouil Proestakis is contacting research at IAASARS/NOA, focusing on the retrieval of atmospheric parameters using passive and active remote sensing techniques. As a researcher, he has participated in 4 international projects and 2 experimental campaigns related to atmospheric physics. He has 15 publications in peer review journals (h-index=7 source: Web of Science).
Anna Gialitaki was born in 1987 in Athens, Greece. She graduated from the Physics Department of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and is currently a student at the postgraduate program of the same department entitled “Environmental Physics”. Since August 2017, she is working together with IAASARS/NOA, aiming to study the physical and optical properties of aerosols using remote sensing and in-situ observations.
Anna Kampouri, born in 1986, graduated from the Physics Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and completed her M.Sc. degree in 2018, in the field of "Meteorology, Climatology and Atmospheric Environment”, from the Department of Geology in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since February 2019, she is working as a research fellow in IAASARS/NOA, on atmospheric modeling. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with the focus on aerosol sources and emissions based on dispersion modeling and remote sensing.

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