ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-8-7723-2008 Tracking and quantifying volcanic SO<sub>2</sub> with IASI, the September 2007 eruption at Jebel at Tair Clarisse L. 1 Coheur P. F. 1 Prata A. J. 2 Hurtmans D. 1 Razavi A. 1 Phulpin T. 3 Hadji-Lazaro J. 4 Clerbaux C. 1 4 Spectroscopie de l'Atmosphère, Service de Chimie Quantique Photophysique, Univ. Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, 18 Avenue E. Belin, 31401 Toulouse, France UPMC Université Paris 06, CNRS UMR 7620, Service d'Aéronomie/IPSL, Paris, France 22 12 2008 8 24 7723 7734 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/8/7723/2008/acp-8-7723-2008.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7723/2008/acp-8-7723-2008.pdf

In this paper we demonstrate the potential of the infrared Fourier transform spectrometer IASI in analysing volcanic eruptions, using the September 2007 eruption at Jebel at Tair as an illustrative example. Detailed radiative transfer calculations are presented, simulating IASI-like transmittance spectra for a variety of volcanic plumes. We analyse the sensitivity of IASI to SO<sub>2</sub> at different altitudes and demonstrate that IASI is in principle capable of sensing SO<sub>2</sub> down to the surface. Using the brightness temperature difference of well chosen SO<sub>2</sub> channels as a filter, we are able to track the plume of the Jebel at Tair eruption for 12 days, on a par with state of the art UV sounders. A method is presented for quickly estimating the altitude of a volcanic plume based on the relative intensities of the SO<sub>2</sub> absorption lines. Despite recent advances, it is still very challenging to retrieve vertical profiles of SO<sub>2</sub> from nadir viewing satellites. Currently the most accurate profiles in nadir are retrieved using backtracking of the plume with atmospheric transport models. Via full inverse retrievals using the optimal estimation method, we show the possibility of extracting medium coarse vertical profiles from IASI data. The retrieval allows us to present an evolution of the total mass of SO<sub>2</sub> in the plume for the Jebel at Tair eruption. An analytical relation is derived between brightness temperature differences and concentrations, which fits the experimental data very well. The spectral range of IASI also allows retrieval of volcanic aerosols. In the initial plume of the Jebel at Tair eruption, volcanic aerosols were found in the form of ice particles, for which we derived particle sizes.

 References Anderson, G., Kneizys, F., Chetwynd, J., Wang, J., Hoke, M., Rothman, L., Kimball, L M., McClatchey, R., Shettle, E., Clough, S., Gallery, W., Abreu, L., and Selby, J.: FASCODE/MODTRAN/LOWTRAN: Past/Present/Future, 18th Annual Review Conference on Atmospheric Transmission Models, 1–16, 1995. Andres, R. and Kasgnoc, A.: A time-averaged inventory of subaerial volcanic sulfur emissions, J. Geophys. Res., 103, 25 251–25 261, 1998. Barret, B., Hurtmans, D., Carleer, M., Mazière, M D., Mahieu, E., and Coheur, P.-F.: Line narrowing effect on the retrieval of HF and HCL vertical profiles from ground-based FTIR measurements, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Ra., 95, 499–519, 2005a. Barret, B., Turquety, S., Hurtmans, D., Clerbaux, C., Hadji-Lazaro, J., Bey, I., Auvray, M., and Coheur, P.-F.: Global carbon monoxide vertical distributions from spaceborne high-resolution FTIR nadir measurements, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 5, 2901–2914, 2005. Berk, A., Bernstein, L., and Robertson, D.: MODTRAN: a moderate resolution model for LOWTRAN 7., Tech. rep., GL-TR-89-0122, Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, Hanscom AFB., 38 pp., 1989. Carn, S., Strow, L., de~Souza-Machado, S., Edmonds, Y., and Hannon, S.: Quantifying tropospheric volcanic emissions with AIRS: The 2002 eruption of Mt Etna (Italy), Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L02301, doi:10.1029/2004GL021034, 2005. Clerbaux, C., Hadji-Lazaro, J., Turquety, S., George, M., Coheur, P.-F., Hurtmans, D., Wespes, C., Herbin, H., Blumstein, D., Tournier, B., and Phulpin, T.: The IASI/MetOp I Mission: First observations and highlights of its potential contribution to GMES, COSPAR Inf. Bul., 2007, 19–24, 2007. Clerbaux, C., Coheur, P.-F., Clarisse, L., Hadji-Lazaro, J., Hurtmans, D., Turquety, S., Bowman, K., Worden, H., and Carn, S.: Measurements of SO2 profiles in volcanic plumes from the NASA Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES), Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L22807, doi:10.1029/2008GL035566, 2008. Coheur, P.-F., Barret, B., Turquety, S., Hurtmans, D., Hadji-Lazaro, J., and Clerbaux, C.: Retrieval and characterization of ozone vertical profiles from a thermal infrared nadir sounder, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D24303, doi:10.1029/2005JD005845, 2005. Durant, A., Shaw, R., Rose, W., Mi, Y., and Ernst, G.: Ice nucleation and overseeding of ice in volcanic clouds, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D09206, doi:10.1029/2007JD009064, 2008. Eckhardt, S., Prata, A J., Seibert, P., Stebel, K., and Stohl, A.: Estimation of the vertical profile of sulfur dioxide injection into the atmosphere by a volcanic eruption using satellite column measurements and inverse transport modeling, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 3881–3897, 2008. Eisinger, M. and Burrows, J.: Tropospheric Sulfur Dioxide Observed by the ERS-2 GOME Instrument, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25(22), 4177–4180, 1998. Fu, Q., Sun, W., and Yang, P.: Modeling of scattering and absorption by nonspherical cirrus ice particles at thermal infrared wavelenghts, J. Atmos. Sci., 56, 2937–2947, 1999. Halmer, M., Schmincke, H.-U., and Graf, H.-F.: The annual volcanic gas input into the atmoshpere, in particular into the stratosphere: a global data set for the past 100 years, J. Volcanol. Geoth. Res., 115, 511–528, 2002. Huang, H.-L., Yang, P., Wei, H., Baum, B., Hu, Y., Antonelli, P., and Ackerman, S.: Inference of ice cloud properties from high spectral resolution infrared observations, IEEE T. Geosci. Remote, 42, 842–853, 2004. Krueger, A., Walter, L., Bhartia, P., Schnetzler, C., Krotkov, N., Sprod, I., and Bluth, G.: Volcanic sulfur dioxide measurements from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) Instruments., J. Geophys. Res., 100, 14 057–14 076, 1995. Krotkov, N. A., Torres, O., Seftor, C., Krueger, A. J., Kostinski, A., Rose, W., Bluth, G., Schneider, D., and Schaefer, S.: Comparison of TOMS and AVHRR volcanic ash retrievals from the August 1992 eruption of Mt Spurr, Geophys. Res. Lett., 26(4), 455–458, 1999. Lee, C., Richter, A., Lee, H., Kim, Y., Burrows, J., Lee, Y., and Choi, B.: Impact of transport of sulfur dioxide from the Asian continent on the air quality over Korea during May 2005, Atmos. Environ., 42, 1461–1475, 2008. Li, J., Li, J., Weisz, E., and Zhou, D.: Physical retrieval of surface emissivity spectrum from hyperspectral infrared radiances, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L16812, doi:10.1029/2007GL030543, 2007. Loyola, D., van Geffen, J., Valks, P., Erbertseder, T., Roozendael, M V., Thomas, W., Zimmer, W., and Wißkirchen, K.: Satellite-based detection of volcanic sulphur dioxide from recent eruptions in Central and South America, Adv. Geosci., 14, 35–40, 2008. Mlawer, E., Clough, S., and Tobin, D.: The MT_CKD water vapor continuum: a revised perspective including collision induced effects, presented at the Atmospheric Science from Space using Fourier Transform Spectrometry (ASSFTS) Workshop, Bad Wildbad, Germany, http://www-imk.fzk.de/asf/ame/ClosedProjects/assfts/O_I_7_Clough_SA.pdf, 2003. Parol, F., Buriez, J., Brogniez, G., and Fouquart, Y.: Information content of AVHRR channels 4 and 5 with respect to the effective radius of cirrus cloud particles, J. Appl. Meteorol., 30, 973–984, 1991. Phulpin, T., Blumstein, D., Prel, F., Tournier, B., Prunet, P., and Schlüssel, P.: Applications of IASI on MetOp-A: first results and illustration of potential use for meteorology, climate monitoring, and atmospheric chemistry, Proc. SPIE, 6684, 66840F, doi:10.1117/12.736816, 2007. Prata, A. and Bernardo, C.: Retrieval of volcanic SO<sub>2</sub> column abundance from Atmospheric Infrared Sounder data, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D20204, doi:10.1029/2006JD007955, 2007. Prata, A. and Kerkmann, J.: Simultaneous retrieval of volcanic ash and SO<sub>2</sub> using MSG-SEVIRI measurements, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L05813, doi:10.1029/2006GL028691, 2007. Prata, A., Rose, W., Self, S., and O'Brien, D. M.: Global, long-term sulphur dioxide measurements from TOVS data: A new tool for studying explosive volcanism and climate, in: Volcanism and the Earth's Atmosphere, edited by: Robock, A. and Oppenheimer, C., 139, Geophys. Monogr, 75–92, AGU, Washington, D.C., 2003. Robock, A.: Volcanic eruptions and climate, Rev. Geophys., 38, 191–219, 2000. Rodgers, C.: Inverse methods for atmospheric sounding: theory and practice, series on athmospheric, oceanic and planetary physics, 2, World Scientific, 240 pp., 2000. Rose, W. I., Gu., Y., Watson, I. M., et~al.: The February–March 2000 eruption of Hekla, Iceland from a satellite perspective, in: Volcanism and the Earth's Atmosphere, edited by: Robock, A. and Oppenheimer, C., 139, Geophys. Monogr, 107–132, AGU, Washington, D.C., 2003. Rose, W I., Bluth, G., and Watson, I.: Ice in volcanic clouds: When and where?, in: Proc. of the 2nd Int. Conf. on Volcanic Ash and Aviation Safety, OFCM, Washington, D.C., Session 3, 61, Extended observations of volcanic SO<sub>2</sub> and sulfate aerosol in the stratosphere, 2004. Rothman, L., Jacquemart, D., Barbe, A., Benner, D C., Birk, M., Brown, L., Carleer, M. R., Chackerian Jr., C., Chance, K., Coudert, L., Dana, V., Devi, V., Flaud, J.-M., Gamache, R., Goldman, A., Hartmann, J.-M., Jucks, K., Maki, A., Mandin, J.-Y., Massie, S., Orphal, J., Perrin, A., Rinsland, C., Smith, M., Tennyson, J., Tolchenov, R., Toth, R., Auwera, J V., Varanasi, P., and Wagner, G.: The HITRAN 2004 molecular spectroscopic database, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Ra., 96, 139–204, 2005. Stamnes, K. and Swanson, R.: A new look at the discrete ordinate method for radiative transfer calculations in anisotropically scattering atmospheres, J. Atmos. Sci., 38, 387–399, 1981. Stunder, B J B., Heffter, J L., and Draxler, R R.: Airborne volcanic ash forecast area reliability, Weather Forecast., 22, 1132–1139, 2007. Textor, C., H.-F Graf, H.-F., and Herzog, M.: Injection of gases into the stratosphere by explosive eruptions, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 4606, doi:10.1029/2002JD002987, 2003. Watson, I., Realmuto, V., Rose, W., Prata, A., Bluth, G., Gu, Y., Bader, C., and Yu, T.: Thermal infrared remote sensing of volcanic emissions using the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer, J. Volcanol. Geoth. Res., 135, 75–89, 2004. Wen, S. and Rose, W I.: Retrieval of sizes and total mass of particles in volcanic clouds using AVHRR bands 4 and 5, J. Geophys. Res., 99, 5421–5431, 1994. Wu, M C.: A method for remote sensing emissivity, fractional cloud cover, and effective cloud temperature of high-level thin clouds, J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol., 26, 225–233, 1987. Yang, K., Krotkov, N., Krueger, A., Carn, S., Bhartia, P., and Levelt, P.: Retrieval of large volcanic SO<sub>2</sub> columns from the Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument: Comparison and limitations, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S43, doi:10.1029/2007JD008825, 2007.