EARLINET observations of the Eyjafjallajökull ash plume over Europe

Gelsomina Pappalardo¹, Aldo Amodeo¹, Albert Ansmann², Arnoud Apituley³, Lucas Alados Arboledas⁴, Dimitris Balis⁵, Christine Böckmann⁶, Anatoli Chaikovsky⁷, Adolfo Comeron⁸, Giuseppe D’Amico¹, Volker Freudenthaler⁹, Ivan Grigorov¹⁰, Ove Gustafsson¹¹, Stefan Kinne¹², Holger Linnè¹², Ina Mattis², Lucia Mona¹, Detlef Mueller², Valentin Mitev¹³, Doina Nicolae¹⁴, Alexandros Papayannis¹⁵, Maria Rita Perrone¹⁶, Aleksander Pietruczuk¹⁷, Manuel Pujadas¹⁸, Jean-Philippe Putaud¹⁹, Francois Ravetta²⁰, Vincenzo Rizi²¹, Valentin Simeonov²², Nicola Spinelli²³, Kerstin Stebel²⁴, Thomas Trickl²⁵, Ulla Wandinger², Frank Wagner²⁶, Matthias Wiegner⁹

¹Istituto di Metodologie per l’Analisi Ambientale CNR-IMAA, C.da S. Loja, Tito Scalo, Potenza, Italy I-85050, pappalardo@imaa.cnr.it

²Institut für Troposphärenforschung, Leipzig, Germany

³Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

⁴Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

⁵Aristoteleio Panepistimio, Thessalonikis, Greece

⁶Institut für Mathematik der Universität Potsdam, Germany

⁷Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences, Minsk, Bjelarus

⁸Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

⁹Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany

¹⁰Institute of Electronics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

¹¹Swedish Defence Research Agency, Linköpig, Sweden

¹²Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Hamburg, Germany

¹³CSEM, Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique SA, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

¹⁴National Institute of R&D for Optoelectronics, Magurele-Bucharest, Romania

¹⁵National Technical University of Athens, Department of Physics, Athens, Greece

¹⁶Università degli Studi di Lecce, Department of Physics, Lecce, Italy

¹⁷Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

¹⁸Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas, Madrid, Spain

¹⁹EC Joint Research Centre, Ispra (VA), Italy

²⁰Université Pierre et Maris Curie-Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Paris, France

²¹Università degli Studi dell’Aquila - Dipartimento di Fisica - CETEMPS, L’Aquila, Italy

²²Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

²³Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze Fisiche della Materia, Napoli, Italy

²⁴Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Kjeller, Norway

²⁵ Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

²⁶Universidade de Évora, Centro de Geofísica de Évora, Évora, Portugal

Keywords: Lidar, aerosol, EARLINET

EARLINET, the European Aerosol Research Lidar NETwork, established in 2000 is the first coordinated lidar network for tropospheric aerosol study on continental scale. The network activity is based on scheduled measurements, a rigorous quality assurance program addressing both instruments and evaluation algorithms, and a standardised data exchange format. At present, the network includes 26 lidar stations distributed over Europe.

EARLINET performed almost continuous measurements since 15 April 2010 in order to follow the evolution of the volcanic plume generated from the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, providing the 4 dimensional distribution of the volcanic ash plume over Europe. A first thin volcanic layer was observed in the evening of 15 April in The Netherlands at about 10 km of altitude. In the morning of April 16, ash plume reached Central Europe (Germany and France) at 5-6 km a.sl. and at upper altitude (around 8km a.s.l.) on Belarus. In the following days lower altitudes were also interested by the presence of the volcanic ashes. Volcanic plume transport toward South was almost blocked by the Alps until 20 April when Italian EARLINET stations observed for the first time a clear signature of the plume. Part of the plume proceeded its travel across Europe reaching Greece on 21 April. A second event was observed over Portugal and Spain (6 May) and then over Italy on 9 May 2010. Volcanic plume was then observed again over Southern Germany on 11 May 2010.

Updated measurement reports and more information about EARLINET can be found at www.earlinet.org.

The financial support for EARLINET by the European Commission under grant RICA-025991 is gratefully acknowledged.