
The Vasco field
experiment is part of the Vasco-Cirene
field campaign of
January-February 2007 in the Indian Ocean south of the
equator. The Vasco measurements
are based
on two quasi-Lagrangian instruments:
- Aeroclippers measuring parameters at the air sea
interface
- wind, temperature,
pressure and humidity in
the atmosphere surface layer
- temperature and salinity
at the ocean surface
- Pressurized balloons measuring
atmospheric
parameters near the top of the atmospheric boundary layer
- wind, temperature,
pressure and humidity

(left) Average
circulation, SST and
OLR (green) during January over the Indian Ocean
(right) Latitude-Height section of the January zonal wind in
the
Indian Ocean showing the westerly jet
Pressurized
balloons and aeroclipper measurements will serve as a base of
validation for the meteorological fields given by ECMWF and that will
be used to describe the large-scale environment for the Cirene
measurements. The Aeroclipper measurements will be typically used to do
the link between the precise Eulerian measurements of Cirene and the
large-scale fields given by satellites and by meteorological analyses
of ECMWF. These measurements will also give a statistics on the spatial
homogeneity of the surface parameters and on their short time and space
variability related to the diurnal cycle and to the convective
precipitation events, in particular on the surface salinity and
temperature and on the turbulent flux perturbations.