Abstract
Abstract. On 4 June 2011, the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex (40.6° S, 72.1° W) in Chile erupted violently and injected volcanic aerosols into the atmosphere. For the safety of civil aviation, continuous lidar observations were made at Lauder, New Zealand (45.0° S, 169.7° E), from 11 June through 6 July 2011. The purpose of our study is to quantify the influence of the volcanic ejections from large eruptions, and we use the data from the ground-based lidar observation. We analyzed lidar data at a wavelength of 532 nm and derived the backscattering ratio and depolarization ratio profiles. During June and July, within the altitude range of 10–15 km, the volcanic aerosols had high depolarization ratios (20–35%), an indication of non-spherical volcanic ash particles. The time series of the backscattering ratio during continuous observations had three peaks occurring at about 12-day intervals: 26.7 at 11.2 km on 11 June, 18.1 at 12.0 km on 23 June, and 5.3 at 11.1 km on 6 July. The optical depth of the volcanic aerosols was 0.45 on 11 June, when the continuous lidar observation started, 0.31 on 23 June, and 0.12 on 6 July. The depolarization ratio values remained high up to a month after the eruption, and the small wavelength exponent calculated from the backscattering coefficients at 532 nm and 1064 nm suggests that a major constituent of the volcanic aerosols was large, non-spherical particles. The presence of volcanic ash in the stratosphere might affect the error in Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) XCO2 retrieval using the 1.6 μm band. We briefly discuss the influence of the increased aerosols on GOSAT products.
Highlights
Eruptions with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) larger than 4 to 5 are generally expected to inject volcanic aerosols into the stratosphere (Newhall and Self, 1982; Deshler, 2008; Vernier et al, 2011; Trickl et al, 2013)
The first aerosol plume from the PCCVC eruption on 4 June 2011 was observed by lidar at Lauder at midnight on 11/12 June
On 4 June 2011, the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex (40.59◦ S, 72.11◦ W) in Chile erupted and the volcanic plume passed over Lauder in New Zealand
Summary
Eruptions with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) larger than 4 to 5 are generally expected to inject volcanic aerosols into the stratosphere (Newhall and Self, 1982; Deshler, 2008; Vernier et al, 2011; Trickl et al, 2013). The SO2 is oxidized to sulfuric acid vapor from which sulfuric acid particles are produced by homogeneous nucleation (Wu et al, 1994). These particles are long-lived in the stratosphere (Uchino et al, 1995; Nagai et al, 2010), depending on the latitude and altitude of injection, and significantly affect the global climate and radiation budget and the ozone layer (Minnis et al, 1993; McCormick et al, 1995; AladosArboledas et al, 1997; Robock, 2000; Solomon et al, 2011)
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