Traces of eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano according to data of lidar observations in Tomsk and Surgut

Abstract

We present the results of lidar measurements of the vertical distribution of optical parameters of anomalous aerosol formations in the atmosphere and the polarization state of backscattered sounding radia tion, obtained in Tomsk (56.48°N; 85.05°E) and Surgut (61.25°N; 73.43°E) in April -May 2010. Data from measurements using back trajectory analysis of atmospheric air mass transport according to the NOAA HYSPLIT MODEL showed that the observed anomalous aerosol formations were due to transport of the products of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in Iceland (April 14, 2010). First traces of the volcanic erup tion were recorded in the troposphere over Tomsk on April 19. The volcanic aerosol persisted in the tropo sphere for about 10 days in total; it penetrated into the stratosphere insignificantly and could not have notice able long term radiation and thermal effects.

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“…Ash plumes could be detected from several parts of Europe, including Great Britain, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and Norway, at 1 to 7 km altitude in plumes of 100 m to 3 km depth and 100 to 300 km width [5]. At the beginning of May, due to the northerly flows in the Atlantic region, the ash plumes reached even the Iberian Peninsula within three to five days at an altitude as high as 11-12 km [6,7], and volcanic plumes from the Eyjafjallajökull eruptions were detected as far as Western Siberia, Russia, about 5000 km away from Iceland, on 20-26 April [8,9]. One year later, in May 2011, the volcanic ash clouds of the Grímsvötn volcano (Iceland) quickly rose to 20-25 km in altitude [10] and reached some part of Greenland and Scandinavia within a few days [11,12], impacting the air traffic in Northern Europe.…”