MOSE: optical turbulence and atmospherical parameters operational forecast at ESO ground-based sites. II: atmospherical parameters in the surface layer [0-30] m

Abstract

This article is the second of a series of articles aiming at proving the feasibility of the forecast of all the most relevant classical atmospherical parameters for astronomical applications (wind speed and direction, temperature, relative humidity) and the optical turbulence (Cn2 and the derived astro-climatic parameters like seeing, isoplanatic angle, wavefront coherence time...). This study is done in the framework of the MOSE project, and focused above the two ESO ground-bases sites of Cerro Paranal and Cerro Armazones. In this paper we present the results related to the Meso-Nh model ability in reconstructing the surface layer atmospherical parameters (wind speed intensity, wind direction and absolute temperature, [0-30] m a.g.l.). The model reconstruction of all the atmospherical parameters in the surface layer is very satisfactory. For the temperature, at all levels, the RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) is inferior to 1°C. For the wind speed, it is ~2 m/s, and for the wind direction, it is in the range [38-46°], at all levels, that corresponds to a RMSE_relative in a range [21-26°]. If a filter is applied for the wind direction (the winds inferior to 3 m/s are discarded from the computations), the wind direction RMSE is in the range [30-41°], i.e. a RMSE_relative in the range [17-23°]. The model operational forecast of the surface layer atmospherical parameters is suitable for different applications, among others: thermalization of the dome using the reconstructed temperature, hours in advance, of the beginning the night; knowing in advance the main direction which the strong winds will come from during the night could allow the astronomer to anticipate the occurrence of a good/bad seeing night, and plan the observations accordingly; preventing adaptive secondary mirrors shake generated by the wind speed.

25 pages, 17 figures, 14 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (2)

• Wind speed vertical distribution at Mt. Graham
• Optical turbulence simulations at Mt Graham using the Meso-NH mode

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Optical turbulence forecast: ready for an operational application
• Forecast of surface layer meteorological parameters at Cerro Paranal with a mesoscale atmospherical model
• On the comparison between MASS and G-SCIDAR techniques
• Forecasting surface layer atmospheric parameters at the LBT site
• Towards an automatic wind speed and direction profiler for Wide Field AO systems
• Evaluation of filtering techniques to increase the reliability of meteo forecasts for ground-based telescopes
• Nowcasting the turbulence at the Paranal Observatory
• Towards an automatic system for monitoring of CN2 and wind speed profiles with GeMS
• FATE -- an operational automatic system for optical turbulence forecasting at the Very Large Telescope
• Operational optical turbulence forecast for the Service Mode of top-class ground based telescopes