SOFIA (Surface of the Ocean, Fluxes and Interaction with the Atmosphere) was a research program carried out by French groups from CRPE, LA (Toulouse), CMM (Brest), IFREMER (Brest), Service d'Aeronomie (Paris), and LMD (Palaiseau) with cooperation from CNRM (Toulouse).
The scientific objective of SOFIA during ASTEX was the study of energy transfer (heat,
humidity and momentum fluxes ) between the sea surface and ABL at scales ranging from the local
scale to the mesoscale (50 km). The general concept of the program was to develop a measurement
strategy based on nested boxes in which instrumentation was used to estimate and quantify fluxes.
These instruments, from which flux estimates at different scales were measured, were used in
connection with satellite measurements to understand and hence to validate the "satellite
integration" of fluxes, particularly in presence of mesoscale oceanic and atmospheric structures
responsible for spatial inhomogeneity of fluxes. An important subject was the validation of wind and momentum estimated from GRS-1, and their relation to real measurements and physical
processes analyses.