Modelling the size distribution of aggregated volcanic ash and implications for operational atmospheric dispersion modelling

Beckett, Frances; Rossi, Eduardo; Devenish, Benjamin; Witham, Claire; Bonadonna, Costanza

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3409-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3409-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3409-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 5

Research article

|

15 Mar 2022

Research article |

| 15 Mar 2022

Modelling the size distribution of aggregated volcanic ash and implications for operational atmospheric dispersion modelling

Frances Beckett, Eduardo Rossi, Benjamin Devenish, Claire Witham, and Costanza Bonadonna

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3409-2022-supplement

Data sets

Dataset of NAME simulations of ash aggregation during the Eyjafjallajokull 2010 eruption Frances Beckett, Eduardo Rossi, Benjamin Devenish, Claire Witham, and Costanza Bonadonna https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4607421

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Short summary

As volcanic ash is transported through the atmosphere, it may collide and stick together to form aggregates. Neglecting the process of aggregation in atmospheric dispersion models could lead to inaccurate forecasts used by civil aviation for hazard assessment. We developed an aggregation scheme for use with the model NAME, which is used by the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre. Using our scheme, we investigate the impact of aggregation on simulations of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud.