Manon Hermans

Background

• BA in Chemistry, ULB (2019-2022)
• MA in Chemistry, ULB (2022-2024)
• Master thesis: Détection des nuages stratosphériques polaire par le sondeur IASI, ULB (2024)
• PhD student in Sciences, ULB, FRIA Grant (2024-present)

PhD project

Mapping Ice Clouds from Satellite Observations in the IR: from sensitive detection to assessing their role on climate and polar stratospheric chemistry.

Ice clouds are ubiquitous in the Earth's atmosphere, where they participate, depending on their origin, their physicochemical characteristics and their location, in several key processes. Earth observation satellites currently allow mapping the distributions and properties of these clouds only partially, creating considerable uncertainties on, for example, their importance in the radiative budget. Our thesis project proposes to bring in new constraints to the study of ice clouds, by exploiting the observations of hyperspectral infrared sounders on board European meteorological platforms (IASI/Metop, IASI-NG/Metop-SG, IRS/MTG-S). The research will involve innovations in atmospheric radiative transfer and machine learning. It will target three types of clouds for which the new satellite measurements will allow specific advances. (1) Polar stratospheric clouds will be mapped, their formation will be linked to stratospheric temperatures and nitric acid and water vapour concentrations, and their presence will be correlated to the magnitude of annual ozone holes. (2) Tropical cirrus clouds will be examined for their contribution to the radiative balance and troposphere-stratosphere exchanges, by attempting to separate cirrus clouds forming in situ from those resulting from anvil clouds, and their radiative effect will be quantified directly based on the measurements. (3) Cirrus clouds resulting from aviation contrails will be targeted in a prospective activity, which will use the first geostationary hyperspectral imaging measurements from IRS. For (1) and (2), we will obtain the distributions over a period of 20 years, which will allow us to investigate the behaviour of these two types of clouds in a warmer climate. Data from the IASI-NG instrument, expected in 2026, should considerably improve the mapping and, in particular, the detection of ultrafine cirrus clouds.

Publications

See here.

Contact

Spectroscopy, Quantum Chemistry and Atmospheric Remote Sensing (SQUARES)(https://squares.ulb.be//),
Université Libre de Bruxelles, CP160/09
50 Av. F.D. Roosevelt, B-1050 Belgium
E-mail