Abstract
Abstract. Volcanic emissions from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption on the Southern fringe of Iceland in April 2010 were detected at the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) station Zugspitze/Hohenpeissenberg (Germany) by means of in-situ measurements, ozone sondes and ceilometers. Information from the German Meteorological Service (DWD) ceilometer network (Flentje et al., 2010) aided identifying the air mass origin. We discuss ground level in-situ measurements of sulphur dioxide (SO2), sulphuric acid (H2SO4) and particulate matter as well as ozone sonde profiles and column measurements of SO2 by a Brewer spectrometer. At Hohenpeissenberg, a number of reactive gases, e.g. carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, and particle properties, e.g. size distribution and ionic composition, were additionally measured during this period. Our results describe the arrival of the volcanic plume at Zugspitze and Hohenpeissenberg during 16 and 17 April 2010 and its residence in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) for several days thereafter. The ash plume was first seen in the ceilometer backscatter profiles at Hohenpeissenberg in about 6–7 km altitude. After entrainment into the PBL at noon of 17 April, largely enhanced values of sulphur dioxide, sulphuric acid and super-micron-particle number concentration were recorded at Zugspitze/Hohenpeissenberg till 21 April.
Highlights
After months of enhanced seismic activity and crustal deformation close to the volcano summit, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano located in the south of Iceland (63◦38 0 N, 19◦36 0 W, summit 1660 m) erupted on 20 March 2010; it was the first major outbreak after a relatively silent period of nearly 190 years
Thereby the ash front arrived over Germany in about 6–7 km height and within several hours concentrated between 2–4 km altitude only, forming a dense, roughly one km thick layer
Optical remote sensing instruments from the ground can retrieve the vertical distributions of volcanic ash or the total column in case of SO2 (Brewer, MAXDOAS)
Summary
After months of enhanced seismic activity and crustal deformation close to the volcano summit, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano located in the south of Iceland (63◦38 0 N, 19◦36 0 W, summit 1660 m) erupted on 20 March 2010; it was the first major outbreak after a relatively silent period of nearly 190 years. A high pressure system in the South of Iceland on 14/15 April and later Western Scandinavia favored with northwesterly winds the transport of large amounts of erupted material, mostly volcanic ash, water vapour, and sulphur dioxide (SO2), across the North-Eastern Atlantic towards the British Islands, Scandinavia and later on to Central Europe. Since the Eyjafjallajokull exhibited variable activity and series of eruptions caused further volcanic emissions (see e.g., Institute of Earth Sciences, 2010) that reached the British Islands, the Iberian peninsula, the Azores, and Italy interrupting air traffic again, e.g. from 5–8 May 2010 and from 10–12 May 2010. Starting on April the Falcon research aircraft of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) performed a series of flights analysing the ash cloud in-situ over Central Europe up to Iceland (Schumann et al, 2010). In our study we describe the temporal evolution of this event, using collocated in-situ measurements of trace gases and aerosol particles at Hohenpeissenberg and Zugspitze (Germany), ozone sondes (Hohenpeissenberg) and observations from a newly established network of aerosol profiling ceilometers in Germany (Flentje et al, 2010)
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