Highly resolved aerosol size distributions measured from high-altitude aircraft can be used to describe the effect of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo on the stratospheric aerosol. In some air masses, aerosol mass mixing ratios increased by factors exceeding 100 and aerosol surface area concentrations increased by factors of 30 or more. Increases in aerosol surface area concentration were accompanied by increases in chlorine monoxide at mid-latitudes when confounding factors were controlled. This observation supports the assertion that reactions occurring on the aerosol can increase the fraction of stratospheric chlorine that occurs in ozone-destroying forms.
A ground‐based lidar system at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, has monitored the stratospheric aerosol vertical distribution and loading since 1974. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991 produced the largest enhancement of stratospheric aerosol loading ever observed by lidar over this mid‐latitude location. Low altitude layers (<20 km) were the first to arrive over Hampton in early August, the result of transport associated with a tropospheric anticyclonic cell over North America. The maximum peak scattering ratio, 34 at 22.4 km, and the maximum stratospheric integrated backscatter of 0.0053 sr−1, both at 694 nm, observed since the eruption were measured on February 20, 1992. After decreasing during the spring and summer of 1992, the aerosol burden increased significantly during the winter of 1992–3, evidence of poleward winter transport from the equatorial reservoir. Over the period from February 1992 to February 1994, the stratospheric aerosol loading decreased with an average 1/e decay time of 10.1 months. The vertical distribution, intensity, and transport of Pinatubo aerosols over Hampton, Virginia, are described in detail and compared with similar measurements after El Chichon.
The eruption of the Mt. Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in June 1991 has resulted in increases in the surface and mass concentrations of aerosol particles in the lower stratosphere. Airborne measurements made at midlatitudes between 15 and 21 km from August 1991 to March 1992 show that, prior to December 1991, the Pinatubo aerosol cloud varied widely in microphysical properties such as size distribution, number, surface and volume concentrations and was also spatially variable. Aerosol surface area concentration was found to be highly correlated to extinction at visible and near‐infrared wavelengths throughout the measurement period. Similarly, backscatter at common lidar wavelengths was a good predictor of aerosol volume concentrations. These results support the use of satellite extinction measurements to estimate aerosol surface and of lidar measurements to estimate aerosol volume or mass if temporal changes in the relationships between the variables are considered.
Results of large-eddy simulations of an aircraft wake are compared with results from ground-based lidar measurements made at NASA Langley Research Center during the Subsonic Assessment Near-Field Interaction Flight Experiment eld tests. Brief reviews of the design of the eld test for obtaining the evolution of wake dispersion behind a Boeing 737 and of the model developed for simulating such wakes are given. Both the measurements and the simulations concentrate on the period from a few seconds to a few minutes after the wake is generated, during which the essentially two-dimensional vortex pair is broken up into a variety of three-dimensional eddies. The model and experiment show similar distinctive breakup eddies induced by the mutual interactions of the vortices, after perturbation by the atmospheric motions.
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