Stratospheric AOD after the 2011 eruption of Nabro volcano measured by lidars over the Northern Hemisphere

Patricia Sawamura (1) , Jean-Paul Vernier (2) , J.-E. Barnes (3) , Timothy A. Berkoff (4) , Ellsworth J. Welton (5) , Lucas Alados-Arboledas (6) , F. Navas-Guzmán (6) , Gelsomina Pappalardo (7) , Lucia Mona (7) , Fabio Madonna (7) , D. Lange (8) , Michael Sicard (8) , Sophie Godin-Beekmann (9) , Guillaume Payen (9) , Z. Wang (10) , S. Hu (10) , S. N. Tripathi (11, 12) , Carmen Cordoba-Jabonero (13) , R. M. Hoff (1, 4)

1 UMD - Department of Physics [College Park]
2 LaRC - NASA Langley Research Center [Hampton]
3 ESRL - NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
4 JCET - Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology [Baltimore]
5 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
6 Departamento de Fisica Aplicada [Granada]
7 IMAA - Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale
8 UPC - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya = Université polytechnique de Catalogne [Barcelona]
9 STRATO - LATMOS
10 Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics
11 Department of Civil Engineering [Kanpur]
12 CESE - Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering [Kanpur]
13 INTA - Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial

Nabro volcano (13.37°N, 41.70°E) in Eritrea erupted on 13 June 2011 generating a layer of sulfate aerosols that persisted in the stratosphere for months. For the first time we report on ground-based lidar observations of the same event from every continent in the Northern Hemisphere, taking advantage of the synergy between global lidar networks such as EARLINET, MPLNET and NDACC with independent lidar groups and satellite CALIPSO to track the evolution of the stratospheric aerosol layer in various parts of the globe. The globally averaged aerosol optical depth (AOD) due to the stratospheric volcanic aerosol layers was of the order of 0.018 ± 0.009 at 532 nm, ranging from 0.003 to 0.04. Compared to the total column AOD from the available collocated AERONET stations, the stratospheric contribution varied from 2% to 23% at 532 nm.

Domaines: Physique Atmosphérique et Océanique [physics.ao-ph]

Patricia Sawamura, Jean-Paul Vernier, J.-E. Barnes, Timothy A. Berkoff, Ellsworth J. Welton, et al.. Stratospheric AOD after the 2011 eruption of Nabro volcano measured by lidars over the Northern Hemisphere. Environmental Research Letters, 2012, 7 (3), pp.034013. ⟨10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/034013⟩. ⟨hal-00731494⟩