ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-11-6871-2011 Sulphur dioxide as a volcanic ash proxy during the April–May 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, Iceland Thomas H. E. 1 Prata A. J. 2 Department of Geological Engineering and Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA Nordic Institute for Air Research (NILU), Kjeller, Norway 18 07 2011 11 14 6871 6880 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/6871/2011/acp-11-6871-2011.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/6871/2011/acp-11-6871-2011.pdf

The volcanic ash cloud from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in April and May 2010 resulted in unprecedented disruption to air traffic in Western Europe causing significant financial losses and highlighting the importance of efficient volcanic cloud monitoring. The feasibility of using SO<sub>2</sub> as a tracer for the ash released during the eruption is investigated here through comparison of ash retrievals from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) with SO<sub>2</sub> measurements from a number of infrared and ultraviolet satellite-based sensors. Results demonstrate that the eruption can be divided into an initial ash-rich phase, a lower intensity middle phase and a final phase where considerably greater quantities both ash and SO<sub>2</sub> were released. Comparisons of ash-SO<sub>2</sub> dispersion indicate that despite frequent collocation of the two species, there are a number of instances throughout the eruption where separation is observed. This separation occurs vertically due to the more rapid settling rate of ash compared to SO<sub>2</sub>, horizontally through wind shear and temporally through volcanological controls on eruption style. The potential for the two species to be dispersed independently has consequences in terms of aircraft hazard mitigation and highlights the importance of monitoring both species concurrently.

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