Detecting volcanic sulfur dioxide plumes in the Northern Hemisphere using the Brewer spectrophotometers, other networks, and satellite observations

Zerefos, Christos S.; Eleftheratos, Kostas; Kapsomenakis, John; Solomos, Stavros; Inness, Antje; Balis, Dimitris; Redondas, Alberto; Eskes, Henk; Allaart, Marc; Amiridis, Vassilis; Dahlback, Arne; De Bock, Veerle; Diémoz, Henri; Engelmann, Ronny; Eriksen, Paul; Fioletov, Vitali; Gröbner, Julian; Heikkilä, Anu; Petropavlovskikh, Irina; Jarosławski, Janusz; Josefsson, Weine; Karppinen, Tomi; Köhler, Ulf; Meleti, Charoula; Repapis, Christos; Rimmer, John; Savinykh, Vladimir; Shirotov, Vadim; Siani, Anna Maria; Smedley, Andrew R. D.; Stanek, Martin; Stübi, René

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-551-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 551–574, 2017

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-551-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 551–574, 2017

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-551-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

Research article 11 Jan 2017

Research article | 11 Jan 2017

Detecting volcanic sulfur dioxide plumes in the Northern Hemisphere using the Brewer spectrophotometers, other networks, and satellite observations

Christos S. Zerefos et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-551-2017-supplement

Data sets

SO2 columns World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre http://woudc.org/

SO2 columns NOAA-EPA Brewer Spectrophotometer UV and Ozone Network https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/neubrew/

OMI and GOME-2 satellite SO2 data products Aura Validation Data Center http://avdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.php?site=_245276100

Surface SO2 concentrations over Europe European Environment Agency databases http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/aqereporting-1#tab-european-data

Short summary

The paper makes a convincing case that the Brewer network is capable of detecting enhanced SO₂ columns, as observed, e.g., after volcanic eruptions. For this reason, large volcanic eruptions of the past decade have been used to detect and forecast SO₂ plumes of volcanic origin using the Brewer and other ground-based networks, aided by satellite, trajectory analysis calculations and modelling.