Koobor

The smoke vortex climbing the stratosphere

This spectacular smoke vortex was produced after the paroxysmal wildfires in Australia at the turn of 2020. It survived 3 months, travelled 60,000 m and rose up to 35 m. See (Khaykin et al., 2020) and the proposal for a PhD below.

Such vortices are formed by pyro convection and are maintained by the absorption of solar radiation. Although undetected so far, they have been also seen after the 2017 British Columbia wildfires (see Lestrelin et al., 2021) and are probably commun.

StratoClim

The geophysica aircraft taking off from Katmandu during the StratoClim campaign

The very successfull StratoClim campaign, funded by a EU project, has gathered a wealth of unique measurement in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) above Nepal and India during 2017 monsoon season. One of the highlights is the discovery of a strong impact of agriculture anmmonium emissions on the composition of the aerosols of the Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer (see Hoepfner et al., 2018)) and Bucci et al., 2020

Confinement by the Asian monsoon anticyclone

Distribution of convective sources and their impact within the Asian monsoon anticyclone (AMA) near the tropopause

Only a small number of clouds that penetrate above 15 km are providing the air that circulates in a rising, leaky, spiral motion within the Asian monsoon anticyclone. Two weeks is a typical time-scale for the turnover of the AMA, leakage of the air contained inside and internal vacillations. See Legras \& Bucci, 2020.

In short

My scientific interests cover a wide range of topics in geophysical fluid dynamics, climate and on the composition of the atmosphere. The list of my past and present works span the statistical theory of turbulence in rotating fluids, the vortices in geophysical fluids, the synoptic weather regimes, the ozone chemistry, the transport and mixing in the atmosphere, the tropical convection, the impact of the volcanic and wildfire plumes. My works combine observation, modelling and theory. .

More on my research soon on a new dedicated page. In the mean time, look at my list of publications.

Post-doc offer (September 2022)

We are seeking a PostDoc to perform an extensive study of the dynamics of aerosol vortices in the stratosphere based on numerical simulations

Smoke vortex proposal