EGU2020-2847
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-2847
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Creating a 4D SO2 dataset with high vertical resolution by connecting volcanic cloud observations through trajectory modelling

Oscar S. Sandvik, Bengt G. Martinsson, Johan Friberg, and Moa Sporre
Oscar S. Sandvik et al.
  • Division of Nuclear Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden (oscar.sandvik@nuclear.lu.se)

After major volcanic eruptions, sulphur dioxide (SO2) can be released in large quantities to the stratosphere. The sulphur dioxide is later oxidised into sulphate aerosol which reflect incoming sunlight and cools the surface temperatures around the globe. The duration length is highly dependent on the altitude of the SO2 cloud and its geographical location. Today, infrared sensors on-board satellites can give an estimate of the SO2 cloud top height and lidar instruments can give height profiles in their narrow field-of-view. Both these classes of instrument lack the capability to fully map the vertical distribution of the SO2 clouds. We propose a scheme to create a SO2 dataset with high vertical resolution. The scheme consists of distributing SO2 column densities from ultra-violet and infrared satellite instruments into SO2 profiles using scattering data from the CALIOP lidar on-board the CALIPSO satellite. The CALIOP lidar has a vertical resolution of up to 60 m in the region of interest. Since CALIOP only collect data along narrow fields-of-view, this initially gives us the SO2 dataset only where CALIOP has collected data. To make the most of this information we run the FLEXPART trajectory model. If air parcels that were initially in CALIOP’s field-of-view and later in another part of the SO2 cloud, then the output from FLEXPART gives us this information. Thus, from CALIOP we shift the vertical information in time to other parts of the SO2 cloud using the trajectory model.

How to cite: Sandvik, O. S., Martinsson, B. G., Friberg, J., and Sporre, M.: Creating a 4D SO2 dataset with high vertical resolution by connecting volcanic cloud observations through trajectory modelling, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-2847, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-2847, 2020.

This abstract will not be presented.