Abstract. Due to the major role of the sun in heating the earth's surface, the atmospheric planetary boundary layer over land is inherently marked by a diurnal cycle. The afternoon transition, the period of the day that connects the daytime dry convective boundary layer to the night-time stable boundary layer, still has a number of unanswered scientific questions. This phase of the diurnal cycle is challenging from both modelling and observational perspectives: it is transitory, most of the forcings are small or null and the turbulence regime changes from fully convective, close to homogeneous and isotropic, toward a more heterogeneous and intermittent state.These issues motivated the BLLAST (Boundary-Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence) field campaign that was conducted from 14 June to 8 July 2011 in southern France, in an area of complex and heterogeneous terrain. A wide range of instrumented platforms including full-size aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft systems, remote-sensing instruments, radiosoundings, tethered balloons, surface flux stations and various meteorological towers were deployed over different surface types. The boundary layer, from the earth's surface to the free troposphere, was probed during the entire day, with a focus and intense observation periods that were conducted from midday until sunset. The BLLAST field campaign also provided an opportunity to test innovative measurement systems, such as new miniaturized sensors, and a new technique for frequent radiosoundings of the low troposphere.Twelve fair weather days displaying various meteorological conditions were extensively documented during the field experiment. The boundary-layer growth varied from one day to another depending on many contributions including stability, advection, subsidence, the state of the previous day's residual layer, as well as local, meso-or synoptic scale conditions.Ground-based measurements combined with tetheredballoon and airborne observations captured the turbulence decay from the surface throughout the whole boundary layer and documented the evolution of the turbulence characteristic length scales during the transition period.Closely integrated with the field experiment, numerical studies are now underway with a complete hierarchy of models to support the data interpretation and improve the model representations.

Near-dawn airborne lidar and dropsonde observations acquired on 7 July 2006, during the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) Special Observing Period 2a1, were used to investigate dust mobilization, lifting and transport in the intertropical discontinuity (ITD) region over western Niger. Atmospheric reflectivity data from the LEANDRE 2 lidar system enabled us to analyse the structure of dust plumes in the context of wind and thermodynamic information provided by the WIND lidar system and dropsondes. Dust mobilization was mainly observed in two locations: (a) within the monsoon flow as the result of the passage of a density current originating from a mesoscale convective system over southwest Niger, and (b) at the leading edge of the monsoon flow where the near-surface winds and turbulence were strong, because the monsoon flow was behaving as an intrusive density current. The circulation in the head of the monsoon density current lifted the mobilized dust towards the wake, along an isentropic surface. Behind and away from the leading edge, some of the mobilized dust was observed to mix across the monsoon-harmattan interface, due to the existence of mechanical shear above the monsoon layer. The dust thus becomes available for long-range transport by the harmattan. Because dust sources are widespread over the Sahel and presumably active on many days when the ITD is located in this region during summer, dust emissions associated with the described mechanism may influence the radiation budget over West Africa.

The molecular channel of the space-based Doppler lidar ADM-Aeolus relies on a double Fabry–Perot (FP) interferometer. The difference in photon numbers transmitted by the two FPs divided by their sum- the so-called Rayleigh response—is a function of the central frequency of the spectrum of the laser light backscattered by the atmosphere, so that a proper inversion enables the measurement of Doppler shifts and line-of-sight wind velocities. In this paper, it is shown that the relation-ship between the Rayleigh response and the Doppler shift does not depend on the sole characteristics of the instrument, but also on the atmospheric pressure and temperature (through the Rayleigh–Brillouin effect), and the likely presence of a narrow-band radiation due to particle scattering. The impact of these on the precision of inverted Doppler shifts (or line-of-sight winds) is assessed showing that a correction is needed. As they are lacking the appropriate precision, climatology profiles of pressure, temperature or aerosols cannot be used as an input. It is proposed to use data predicted by a numerical weather prediction system instead. A possible correction scheme is proposed. Its implication on the quality of retrieved Rayleigh winds is discussed

Abstract. An Ultra-Violet Rayleigh-Mie lidar has been integrated aboard the French research aircraft Falcon20 in order to monitor the ash plume emitted by the Eyjafjallajökul volcano in April-May 2010. Three operational flights were carried out on 21 April, 12 and 16 May 2010 inside French, Spanish and British air spaces, respectively. The original purpose of the flights was to provide the French civil aviation authorities with objective information on the presence and location of the ash plume. The present paper presents the results of detailed analyses elaborated after the volcano crisis. They bear on the structure of the ash clouds and their optical properties such as the extinction coefficient and the lidar ratio. Lidar ratios were measured in the range of 43 to 50 sr, in good agreement with the ratios derived from groundbased lidar near Paris (France) in April 2010 (∼ 48 sr). The ash signature in terms of particulate depolarization was consistent during all flights (between 34 ± 3 % and 38 ± 3 %). Such a value seems to be a good identification parameter for volcanic ash. Using specific cross-sections between 0.19 and 1.1 m 2 g −1 , the minimum (maximal) mass concentrations in the ash plumes derived for the flights on 12 and 16 May were 140 (2300) and 250 (1500) µg m −3 , respectively. It may be rather less than, or of the order of the critical level of damage (2 mg m −3 ) for the aircraft engines, but well above the 200 µg m −3 warning level.