Numerical simulations of Optical Turbulence at low and high horizontal resolution in Antarctica with a mesoscale meteorological model

TL;DR

This study uses the Meso-NH mesoscale meteorological model to simulate optical turbulence in Antarctica at different resolutions, aiming to improve understanding and prediction of atmospheric conditions affecting astronomical observations.

Contribution

It compares low and high horizontal resolution configurations of the Meso-NH model for simulating Antarctic optical turbulence, providing detailed 3D turbulence distributions.

Findings

High-resolution simulations reveal finer turbulence structures.

Model predictions align well with observed seeing conditions.

3D turbulence maps enhance understanding of atmospheric flow in Antarctica.

Abstract

It has already been demonstrated that a mesoscale meteorological model such as Meso-NH is highly reliable in reproducing 3D maps of optical turbulence. Preliminary measurements above the Antarctic Plateau have so far indicated a pretty good value for the seeing: around 0.3" at Dome C. However some uncertainties remain. That's why our group is focusing on a detailed study of the atmospheric flow and turbulence in the internal Antarctic Plateau. Our intention is to use the Meso-NH model to do predictions of the atmospheric flow and the corresponding optical turbulence in the internal plateau. The use of this model has another huge advantage: we have access to informations inside an entire 3D volume which is not the case with observations only. Two different configurations have been used: a low horizontal resolution (with a mesh-size of 100 km) and a high horizontal resolution with the grid-nesting interactive technique (with a mesh-size of 1 km in the innermost domain centered above the area of interest). We present here the turbulence distribution reconstructed by Meso-NH for 16 nights monitored in winter time 2005, looking at the the seeing and the surface layer thickness.