EGU2020-11221
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11221
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Ground-based and satellite measurements of the SO2 plume from the eruption of Raikoke volcano in June 2019

Vitali Fioletov1, Chris Sioris1, Xiaoyi Zhao1, Debora Griffin1, Chris McLinden1, Michael Brohart1, Sum Chi Lee1, Simon Carn2, Kristof Bognar3, Kimberly Strong3, Jingqiu Mao4, Nicolas Theys5, Diego Loyola6, Pascal Hedelt6, Nickolay Krotkov7, Can Li7,8, and Chris Boone9
Vitali Fioletov et al.
  • 1Environment and Climate Change Canada, ARQM, Toronto, Canada
  • 2Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  • 4Geophysical Institute, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA
  • 5Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), Brussels, Belgium
  • 6Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Wessling, Germany
  • 7Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
  • 8Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland College Park, MD, USA
  • 9University of Waterloo, Department of Chemistry, Waterloo, Canada

The eruption of the Raikoke volcano (Kuril Islands) on June 21-22, 2019, created a large plume of sulfur dioxide (SO2) that reached the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The plume persisted in the atmosphere over the middle and high latitudes of the Western Hemisphere for more than a month creating a rare validation opportunity with multiple collocated measurements from ground and space both revealing enhanced SO2 vertical column densities (VCDs). Moreover, since the plume was often located over high latitudes, multiple orbits per day from the polar orbiting satellites could be utilized. Pandora sunphotometer measurements at Edmonton and Eureka, Canada, and at Fairbanks, Alaska, and Brewer spectrophotometer measurements at seven Canadian sites (Saturna, Edmonton, Churchill, Resolute, Eureka, and Alert) reported SO2 values up to 15 Dobson Units (DU, where 1 DU = 2.69 × 1016 molecules/cm²). These measurements were compared with satellite SO2 VCDs obtained by the Sentinel 5p TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), AURA Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and Suomi NPP Ozone Mapping Profiling Suite (OMPS). Back-trajectory Lagrangian model analysis and satellite SO2 profile measurements by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment mission Fourier transform spectrometer (ACE/FTS) on board the Canadian satellite SCISAT demonstrated that the volcanic plume was located at 8-25 km. In general, ground-based and satellite measurements show a very good agreement. However, the exact ground-based and satellite viewing geometry should be considered when such measurements are taken near the edge of the plume.

How to cite: Fioletov, V., Sioris, C., Zhao, X., Griffin, D., McLinden, C., Brohart, M., Lee, S. C., Carn, S., Bognar, K., Strong, K., Mao, J., Theys, N., Loyola, D., Hedelt, P., Krotkov, N., Li, C., and Boone, C.: Ground-based and satellite measurements of the SO2 plume from the eruption of Raikoke volcano in June 2019, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-11221, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11221, 2020.