Synergetic Aerosol Layer Observation After the 2015 Calbuco Volcanic Eruption Event

Abstract

On 22 April 2015, the Calbuco volcano in Chile (Lat: 41.33 ∘ S, Long: 72.62 ∘ W) erupted after 43 years of inactivity followed by a great amount of aerosol injection into the atmosphere. The pyroclastic material dispersed into the atmosphere posed a potential threat to aviation traffic and air quality over affected a large area. The plumes and debris spread from its location to Patagonian and Pampean regions, reaching the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and neighboring countries, such as Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, driven by the westerly winds at these latitudes. The presence of volcanic aerosol layers could be identified promptly at the proximities of Calbuco and afterwards by remote sensing using satellites and lidars in the path of the dispersed aerosols. The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board of AQUA/TERRA satellites and Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) on board of Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite were the space platforms used to track the injected layers and a multi-channel lidar system from Latin America Lidar Network (LALINET) SPU Lidar station in South America allowed us to get the spatial and temporal distribution of Calbuco ashes after its occurrence. The SPU lidar stations co-located Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sunphotometers to help in the optical characterization. Here, we present the volcanic layer transported over São Paulo area and the detection of aerosol plume between 18 and 20 km. The path traveled by the volcanic aerosol to reach the Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (MASP) was tracked by CALIPSO and the aerosol optical and geometrical properties were retrieved at some points to monitor the plume evolution. Total attenuated backscatter profile at 532 nm obtained by CALIPSO revealed the height range extension of the aerosol plume between 18 and 20 km and are in agreement with SPU lidar range corrected signal at 532 nm. The daily evolution of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at 532 and 355 nm, retrieved from AERONET sunphotometer, showed a substantial increasing on 27 April, the day of the volcanic plume detection at Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (MASP), achieving values of 0 . 33 ± 0 . 16 and 0 . 22 ± 0 . 09 at 355 and 532 nm, respectively. AERONET aerosol size distribution was dominated by fine mode aerosol over coarse mode, especially on 27 and 28 April. The space and time coincident aerosol extinction profiles from SPU lidar station and OMPS LP from the Calbuco eruption conducted on 27 April agreed on the double layer structure. The main objective of this study was the application of the transmittance method, using the Platt formalism, to calculate the optical and physical properties of volcanic plume, i.e., aerosol bottom and top altitude, the aerosol optical depth and lidar ratio. The aerosol plume was detected between 18 and 19.3 km, with AOD value of 0.159 at 532 nm and Ånsgtröm exponent of 0 . 61 ± 0 . 58 . The lidar ratio retrieved was 76 ± 27 sr and 63 ± 21 sr at 532 and 355 nm, respectively. Considering the values of these parameters, the Calbuco volcanic aerosol layers could be classified as sulfates with some ash type.

CALIPSO level 3 stratospheric aerosol profile product: version 1.00 algorithm description and initial assessment

“…Stratospheric aerosols have been characterized using this technique from SAGE instruments on the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) and Meteor-3M as well as from the International Space Station (ISS). Among other spaceborne instruments that have used this technique are the Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement (POAM II, POAM III; Glaccum et al, 1996;Lucke et al, 1999) and Measurement of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation (MAESTRO; McElroy et al, 2007). In addition, the Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imager System (OSIRIS) and the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) have used a limb scatter technique to obtain aerosol extinction profiles (Bourassa et al, 2012;Chen et al, 2018).…”

A multi-sensor satellite-based archive of the largest SO<sub>2</sub> volcanic eruptions since 2006

“…The RO profiles are obtained using a combination of geometric optics and wave optics retrieval (Angerer et al, 2017), with transition below the tropopause. The retrieval is based on orbit information and amplitude and phase data from the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research/COSMIC Data Analysis and Archive Center (UCAR/CDAAC) collected from the following RO missions: the CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) (Wickert et al, 2001), the Satélite de Aplicaciones Cientificas (SAC-C) (Hajj et al, 2004), the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE-A) (Beyerle et al, 2005), the FormoSat-3/COSMIC (Anthes et al, 2008) and the EUMET-SAT/MetOp missions (Luntama et al, 2008). The accuracy of the GNSS RO is 0.2 K in terms of temperature and 0.1 % in terms of refractivity, and the data from the different missions are very consistent (Scherllin-Pirscher et al, 2011), so there is no need of inter-calibration or homogenization (Foelsche et al, 2011).…”

“…Bignami et al, 2014;Griessbach et al, 2014;Theys et al, 2014;Biondi et al, 2017). The Calbuco 2015 eruption (Marzano et al, 2018;Lopes et al, 2019) was widely studied, especially in connection to its impact on the Antarctic ozone hole (Ivy et al, 2017;Stone et al, 2017;Zhu et al, 2018;Zuev et al, 2018). The rest of the volcanic clouds, such as the ones produced by Merapi 2010 (Picquout et al, 2013), Tolbachik 2012(Telling et al, 2015, and Kelut 2014 (Kristiansen et al, 2015;Vernier et al, 2016) also received some attention from the scientific community.…”

Aerosol Optical Radiation Properties in Kunming (the Low–Latitude Plateau of China) and Their Relationship to the Monsoon Circulation Index

“…Aerosols with different particle sizes have different effects on the environment, transport, and human health [6,7]. However, due to the complex composition of aerosols and the uncertainty of their spatiotemporal distribution, the physicochemical and optical properties of aerosols vary [8], which makes environmental research and assessing the radiation effects of climate change challenging [9][10][11][12][13]. Therefore, quantitative remote sensing analysis of aerosol properties in different geographical locations has important theoretical and practical implications.…”