Identification

Title

Stratospheric aerosols, polar stratospheric clouds, and polar ozone depletion after the Mount Calbuco eruption in 2015

Abstract

We investigate the impact of the 2015 Mount Calbuco eruption and previous eruptions on stratospheric aerosols, polar stratospheric clouds, and ozone depletion using the Community Earth System Model coupled with the Community Aerosol and Radiation Model for Atmospheres compared with several satellite and balloon observations. The modeled volcanic sulfate aerosol size distribution agrees with the Light Optical Aerosol Counter observation at the Reunion Island site (21 degrees S, 55 degrees E) on 19 August at 20 km within estimated 0.1- to 1-mu m radius error bars. Both the observed and simulated backscatter and extinction show that volcanic sulfate aerosol from the Mount Calbuco eruption was transported from midlatitude toward the Antarctic and slowly descended during transport. They also indicate that the SO2 emission into the stratosphere from Mount Calbuco is 0.2-0.4 Tg. The modeled number density indicates that the volcanic sulfate aerosol from the Mount Calbuco eruption penetrated into the Antarctic polar vortex in May and thereafter and reduced the polar stratospheric clouds effective radius. In the simulations, the Antarctic stratosphere denitrified too early and by too much compared with Microwave Limb Sounder observations. Heterogeneous nucleation of nitric acid trihydrate or sophisticated gravity wave representations may be required to simulate nitric acid trihydrate particles with smaller falling velocity. The volcanic sulfate aerosol increases the ozone depletion in September especially around 100 hPa and 70 degrees S, relative to a case without any volcanic eruptions. The simulated surface area density, earlier ozone loss, and larger area of the ozone hole are consistent with the presence of volcanic sulfate layers observed at 16 km as well as previous studies.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7154m1k

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-11-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact