European High-Performance Infrastructures
in Turbulence

The air in the atmosphere and the water in oceans are almost everywhere in a state defined as ‘turbulent’. White capping on rough sea and cumulonimbus types of clouds are examples of how turbulence manifests itself in such environment. Turbulence is very effective in transferring momentum and heat in ocean and atmosphere, and in regulating the thermo-dynamical balance between the atmosphere and the ocean which is an essential role player in defining the global climate and its changes. Compared to the atmosphere, the oceans are much less sampled and much less data exist to test models of the ocean that include the representation of its turbulent nature. With this project we intend evaluating the possibility of using a very small prototype of the photo-detector employed in the Extreme Universe Space Observatory on board the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM-EUSO) at the TurLab facility in Torino to verify the possibility of this sensor to detect and distinguish different types of waves and clouds based on their albedo on diffusive and reflected lights. If successful, the JEM-EUSO technology will allow monitoring oceans and the atmosphere between +51.6° latitudes, by sampling continuously night-time  2·105 km2 of the Earth’s surface with a temporal resolution of 2.5 μs and a spatial resolution of  500 m in the near UV band (300 – 400 nm) from the ISS (altitude of 400 km) for a 3-5 years proposed mission. If successful, JEM-EUSO will provide valuable and complementary data for oceanic and atmospheric scientific communities.