Identification

Title

First satellite identification of volcanic carbon monoxide

Abstract

Volcanic degassing produces abundant H₂O and CO₂, as well as SO₂, HCl, H₂S, S₂, H₂, HF, CO, and SiF4. Volcanic SO₂, HCl, and H2S have been detected from satellites in the past; the remaining species are analyzed in situ or using airborne instruments, with all the consequent limitations in safety and sampling, and at elevated costs. We report identification of high CO concentrations consistent with a volcanic origin (the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull and 2011 Grímsvötn eruptions in Iceland) in data from the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere instrument (MOPITT) onboard EOS/Terra. The high CO values coincide spatially and temporally with ash plumes emanating from the eruptive centers, with elevated SO₂ and aerosol optical thickness, as well as with high CO values in data from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), onboard MetOp-A. CO has a positive indirect radiative forcing; climate models currently do not account for volcanic CO emissions. Given global volcanic CO₂ emissions between 130 and 440 Tg/year and volcanic CO:CO₂ ratios from the literature, we estimate that average global volcanic CO emissions may be on the order of ~5.5 Tg/year, equivalent to the CO emissions caused by combined fossil fuel and biofuel combustion in Australia.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7xw4kkn

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

2012-11-09T00:00:00Z

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