KASCADE 2013
The KAtabatic winds and Stability over CAdarache for Dispersion of Effluents field campaign was conducted in south-eastern France (Provence) to investigate thermally-driven winds during stably stratified conditions in the Cadarache valley (width: 1-2km, depth: 100 m, length: 5-6 km), a tributary valley of the larger Durance Valley (see map for details). The field experiment covered a 3-month period in the winter of 2012/13 during which a 30-m flux tower, a SODAR, radio-soundings and tethered balloon experiments were used to unravel the wind patterns in and above the small Cadarache valley. The campaign revealed an intriguing pattern of down- and up-valley flows, whose transition appeared largely controlled by solar forcing presence or absence, and their flow depths appeared mainly controlled by the valley scales under investigation (see conceptual sketch). The experiment provided new insights necessary to advance research for dispersion of effluents in small valleys. A second campaign focusing on spatial heterogeneity of the flow has been conducted in the winter of 2017. Data is freely available, and can be found on https://kascade.sedoo.fr/ Related publications: Valley wind characteristics (Duine et al. 2017) WRF simulations (Kalverla et al. 2016) Valley wind nowcasting (Duine et al. 2016) PhD-thesis |