Validation of ASH Optical Depth and Layer Height from IASI using Earlinet Lidar Data

¹ Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
² Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
³ University of Oxford, Atmospheric, Oceanic & Planetary Physics Clarendon Laboratory, United Kingdom
⁴ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metodologie per l’Analisi Ambientale (CNR-IMAA), Tito Scalo, Potenza, Italy

^* Email: balis@auth.gr

Published online: 7 June 2016

Abstract

The 2010 eruptions of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull attracted the attention of the public and the scientific community to the vulnerability of the European airspace to volcanic eruptions. The European Space Agency project “Satellite Monitoring of Ash and Sulphur Dioxide for the mitigation of Aviation Hazards”, called for the creation of an optimal End-to-End System for Volcanic Ash Plume Monitoring and Prediction. This system is based on improved and dedicated satellite-derived ash plume and sulphur dioxide level assessments, as well as an extensive validation, using among others ground-based measurements (Koukouli et al., 2014). The validation of volcanic ash levels and height extracted from IASI/MetopA is presented in this work with emphasis on the ash plume height and ash optical depth levels. European Aerosol Research Lidar Network [EARLINET] lidar measurements are compared to different satellite estimates for two eruptive episodes. The validation results are extremely promising within the estimated uncertainties of each of the comparative datasets.