A house destroyed in the bed of the Vésubie -

F.Spire / SIPA

  • The international research program "Mistrals" comes to an end after ten years of studies in the Mediterranean.

  • It has made it possible to compile many lessons on the impact of climate change on the environment.

By boat, by plane, in the field, the scientists of "Mistrals" have spared no effort to collect thousands of data on the environmental impact of climate change in the Mediterranean basin.

For ten years, more than 1000 scientists from 23 countries have participated in this unprecedented research program, which has crossed disciplines and nationalities.

"We have accumulated an absolutely gigantic and unique body of knowledge," says Cyril Moulin, deputy director of the CNRS-Insu (National Institute of Sciences of the Universe).

This sum will be embodied in a Mistrals database bringing together data from all observation campaigns.

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And these campaigns have been varied, to cover all current issues: air pollution, water pollution, Mediterranean rainy episodes, drought, biodiversity of the Mediterranean forest, etc.

From Seyne-sur-Mer to Djerba, no less than 15 million liters of seawater were passed through a sieve to collect a quantity of plankton and detect, down to a small size, the contaminants present.

Towards a better forecast of exceptional floods

“It has been phenomenal work,” recounts Marc Tedetti, IRD researcher at the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanology.

This work made it possible in particular to identify a higher concentration of mercury in small plankton in the northern Mediterranean Sea than in the south.

Enough to reveal a little more the ecological state of the western Mediterranean, when we know that said plankton is “one of the key links in the transfer of contaminants within marine ecosystems.

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The recent episodes of exceptional precipitation in the Gard and the Alpes Maritimes were also at the heart of Mistrals, with the program called Hymex.

For example, teams have taken the water temperature in the Mediterranean to see what role it could play in the atmosphere and the storm system.

“We have started to prepare the forecast models for tomorrow,” says Véronique Ducrocq, Météo-France engineer.

The work carried out over the last ten years has made it possible to improve the understanding of the processes at work in the Mediterranean episodes, and to explain why certain events are more predictable than others.

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“Mistrals is stopping, but that doesn't mean that everything is stopping, reassures Cyril Moulin.

The dynamics that have been launched, the new collaborations both between the different disciplines and with other countries, these are things that will continue ”.

Not to mention that future research actions in the Mediterranean will be able to draw on the database.

Crucial open data, in a spirit of open science.

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