U34A-04
Long-range transport, air quality and climate impacts of volcanic sulfur from the 2014-2015 eruption at Holuhraun (Bárðarbunga, Iceland)
Wednesday, 16 December 2015: 16:39
102 (Moscone South)
Anja Schmidt1, Susan J Leadbetter2, Nicolas Theys3, Elisa Carboni4, Claire S Witham2, Thor Thordarson5, John A Stevenson6, Andrew Gettelman7 and Jon Egill Kristjansson8, (1)University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom, (2)Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom, (3)Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium, (4)University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, (5)University of Iceland, Faculty of Earth Sciences, Reykjavik, Iceland, (6)Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, (7)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, (8)University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Abstract:
The 2014-2015 effusive Holuhraun flood lava eruption produced about 1.5 km3 of lava, making it the largest eruption in Iceland in more than 200 years. Over the course of the eruption, daily sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from Holuhraun exceeded daily SO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources in Europe in 2010 by at least a factor of 3. We present surface air quality observations from across Northern Europe together with satellite remote-sensing data and model simulations of volcanic SO2. These datasets highlight that despite Holuhraun emitting SO2 into the lowermost troposphere, volcanic SO2 was transported over long distances and detected by air quality monitoring stations up to 2750 km away from the source. We will also discuss how and to what degree this eruption and other continuously degassing volcanoes emitting SO2 into the troposphere can affect the brightness of low-level clouds and regional climate.
