Lagrangian transport simulations of volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions: Impact of meteorological data products

Hoffmann, Lars; Rößler, Thomas; Grießbach, Sabine; Heng, Yi; Stein, Olaf

doi:10.1002/2015jd023749

Cited by 48 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 100 publications

(176 reference statements)

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“…More details on the SI can be found in Hoffmann et al (2014Hoffmann et al ( , 2016 and Heng et al (2016). AIRS was able to detect the SO 2 cloud from the beginning of the eruption of Sarychev on 12 June 2009 up to 5 weeks later.…”

Section: Airsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The Massive-Parallel Trajectory Calculations (MPTRAC) model is a Lagrangian particle dispersion model, which is particularly suited to study volcanic eruption events Hoffmann et al, 2016). In the MPTRAC model, trajectories for individual air parcels are calculated based on numerical integration of the kinematic equation of motion and simulations are driven by wind fields from global meteorological reanalyses.…”

Section: Mptracmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Equatorward dispersion of a high-latitude volcanic plume and its relation to the Asian summer monsoon: a case study of the Sarychev eruption in 2009

Grießbach²,

Hoffmann³

2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Tropical volcanic eruptions have been widely studied for their significant contribution to stratospheric aerosol loading and global climate impacts, but the impact of high-latitude volcanic eruptions on the stratospheric aerosol layer is not clear and the pathway of transporting aerosol from high latitudes to the tropical stratosphere is not well understood. In this work, we focus on the high-latitude volcano Sarychev (48.1 • N, 153.2 • E), which erupted in June 2009, and the influence of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) on the equatorward dispersion of the volcanic plume. First, the sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emission time series and plume height of the Sarychev eruption are estimated with SO 2 observations of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and a backward trajectory approach using the Lagrangian particle dispersion model Massive-Parallel Trajectory Calculations (MPTRAC). Then, the transport and dispersion of the plume are simulated using the derived SO 2 emission time series. The transport simulations are compared with SO 2 observations from AIRS and validated with aerosol observations from the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS). The MPTRAC simulations show that about 4 % of the sulfur emissions were transported to the tropical stratosphere within 50 days after the beginning of the eruption, and the plume dispersed towards the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) through isentropic transport above the subtropical jet. The MPTRAC simulations and MIPAS aerosol data both show that between the potential temperature levels of 360 and 400 K, the equatorward transport was primarily driven by anticyclonic Rossby wave breaking enhanced by the ASM in boreal summer. The volcanic plume was entrained along the anticyclone flows and reached the TTL as it was transported southwestwards into the deep tropics downstream of the anticyclone. Further, the ASM anticyclone influenced the pathway of aerosols by isolating an "aerosol hole" inside of the ASM, which was surrounded by aerosol-rich air outside. This transport barrier was best indicated using the potential vorticity gradient approach. Long-term MIPAS aerosol detections show that after entering the TTL, aerosol from the Sarychev eruption remained in the tropical stratosphere for about 10 months and ascended slowly. The ascent speed agreed well with the ascent speed of the water vapor tape recorder. Furthermore, a hypothetical MPTRAC simulation for a wintertime eruption was carried out. It is shown that under winter atmospheric circulations, the equatorward transport of the plume would be suppressed by the strong subtropical jet and weak wave breaking events. In this hypothetical scenario, a high-latitude volcanic eruption would not be able to contribute to the tropical stratospheric aerosol layer.

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Section: Airsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Mptracmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equatorward dispersion of a high-latitude volcanic plume and its relation to the Asian summer monsoon: a case study of the Sarychev eruption in 2009

Grießbach²,

Hoffmann³

2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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“…The calculations were performed with the Lagrangian particle dispersion model introduced by Hoffmann et al (2016b) using both the ERA-Interim and the ECMWF operational analysis as meteorological input data. The calculations cover a time period of 24 h. We conducted the calculations for ensembles of 100 trajectories to take into account the broad measurement volume of MIPAS as well as atmospheric diffusion and subgrid-scale wind fluctuations.…”

Section: Datementioning

confidence: 99%

A decadal satellite record of gravity wave activity in the lower stratosphere to study polar stratospheric cloud formation

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Atmospheric gravity waves yield substantial small-scale temperature fluctuations that can trigger the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). This paper introduces a new satellite record of gravity wave activity in the polar lower stratosphere to investigate this process. The record is comprised of observations of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite from January 2003 to December 2012. Gravity wave activity is measured in terms of detrended and noise-corrected 15 µm brightness temperature variances, which are calculated from AIRS channels that are the most sensitive to temperature fluctuations at about 17-32 km of altitude. The analysis of temporal patterns in the data set revealed a strong seasonal cycle in wave activity with wintertime maxima at mid-and high latitudes. The analysis of spatial patterns indicated that orography as well as jet and storm sources are the main causes of the observed waves. Wave activity is closely correlated with 30 hPa zonal winds, which is attributed to the AIRS observational filter. We used the new data set to evaluate explicitly resolved temperature fluctuations due to gravity waves in the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operational analysis. It was found that the analysis reproduces orographic and non-orographic wave patterns in the right places, but that wave amplitudes are typically underestimated by a factor of 2-3. Furthermore, in a first survey of joint AIRS and Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) satellite observations, nearly 50 gravity-wave-induced PSC formation events were identified. The survey shows that the new AIRS data set can help to better identify such events and more generally highlights the importance of the process for polar ozone chemistry.

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“…The 12-hourly analyses were combined with short-term forecasts in between to obtain data with a 3-hourly time step. Hoffmann et al (2016) showed that ECMWF operational analyses and forecasts outperform current reanalysis data products in terms of transport deviations for simulations of volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions in the upper troposphere and stratosphere. Hoffmann et al (2017) showed the same for the trajectory calculations for superpressure balloon observations in the Antarctic lower stratosphere.…”

Section: Ecmwf Operational Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…MPTRAC has been developed to support the analysis of atmospheric transport processes in the free troposphere and stratosphere. In recent studies, it has been used to perform transport simulations for volcanic eruptions and to reconstruct time-and height-resolved emission rates for these events Hoffmann et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2017). An intercomparison of meteorological analyses and MPTRAC trajectory calculations with superpressure balloon observations in the Antarctic lower stratosphere was presented by Hoffmann et al (2017).…”

Section: Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trajectory errors of different numerical integration schemes diagnosed with the MPTRAC advection module driven by ECMWF operational analyses

Rößler

Stein²,

Heng

et al. 2018

Geosci. Model Dev.

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Abstract. The accuracy of trajectory calculations performed by Lagrangian particle dispersion models (LPDMs) depends on various factors. The optimization of numerical integration schemes used to solve the trajectory equation helps to maximize the computational efficiency of large-scale LPDM simulations. We analyzed global truncation errors of six explicit integration schemes of the Runge-Kutta family, which we implemented in the Massive-Parallel Trajectory Calculations (MPTRAC) advection module. The simulations were driven by wind fields from operational analysis and forecasts of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) at T1279L137 spatial resolution and 3 h temporal sampling. We defined separate test cases for 15 distinct regions of the atmosphere, covering the polar regions, the midlatitudes, and the tropics in the free troposphere, in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS) region, and in the middle stratosphere. In total, more than 5000 different transport simulations were performed, covering the months of January, April, July, and October for the years 2014 and 2015. We quantified the accuracy of the trajectories by calculating transport deviations with respect to reference simulations using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta integration scheme with a sufficiently fine time step. Transport deviations were assessed with respect to error limits based on turbulent diffusion. Independent of the numerical scheme, the global truncation errors vary significantly between the different regions. Horizontal transport deviations in the stratosphere are typically an order of magnitude smaller compared with the free troposphere. We found that the truncation errors of the six numerical schemes fall into three distinct groups, which mostly depend on the numerical order of the scheme. Schemes of the same order differ little in accuracy, but some methods need less computational time, which gives them an advantage in efficiency. The selection of the integration scheme and the appropriate time step should possibly take into account the typical altitude ranges as well as the total length of the simulations to achieve the most efficient simulations. However, trying to summarize, we recommend the third-order Runge-Kutta method with a time step of 170 s or the midpoint scheme with a time step of 100 s for efficient simulations of up to 10 days of simulation time for the specific ECMWF high-resolution data set considered in this study. Purely stratospheric simulations can use significantly larger time steps of 800 and 1100 s for the midpoint scheme and the third-order Runge-Kutta method, respectively.

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Lagrangian transport simulations of volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions: Impact of meteorological data products

Cited by 48 publications

References 100 publications

Equatorward dispersion of a high-latitude volcanic plume and its relation to the Asian summer monsoon: a case study of the Sarychev eruption in 2009

Equatorward dispersion of a high-latitude volcanic plume and its relation to the Asian summer monsoon: a case study of the Sarychev eruption in 2009

A decadal satellite record of gravity wave activity in the lower stratosphere to study polar stratospheric cloud formation

Trajectory errors of different numerical integration schemes diagnosed with the MPTRAC advection module driven by ECMWF operational analyses

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