The February-March 2000 eruption of Hekla, Iceland from a satellite perspective

An 80,000 km 2 stratospheric volcanic cloud formed from the 26 February 2000 eruption of Hekla (63.98° N, 19.70° W). POAM-III profiles showed the cloud was 9-12 km asl. During 3 days this cloud drifted north. Three remote sensing algorithms (TOMS SO 2 , MODIS & TOVS 7.3 μm IR and MODIS 8.6 μm IR) estimated ∼0.2 Tg SO 2 . Sulfate aerosol in the cloud was 0.003-0.008 Tg, from MODIS IR data. MODIS and AVHRR show that cloud particles were ice. The ice mass peaked at ∼1 Tg ∼10 hours after eruption onset. A ∼0.1 Tg mass of ash was detected in the early plume. Repetitive TOVS data showed a decrease of SO 2 in the cloud from 0.2 Tg to below TOVS detection (i.e.<0.01 Tg) in ∼3.5 days. The stratospheric height of the cloud may result from a large release of magmatic water vapor early (1819 UT on 26 February) leading to the ice-rich volcanic cloud. The optical depth of the cloud peaked early on 27 February and faded with time, apparently as ice fell out. A research aircraft encounter with the top of the cloud at 0514 UT on 28 February, 35 hours after eruption onset, provided validation of algorithms. The aircraft's instruments measured ∼0.5-1 ppmv SO 2 and ∼35-70 ppb sulfate aerosol in the cloud, 10-30% lower than concentrations from retrievals a few hours later. Different SO 2 algorithms illuminate environmental variables which affect the quality of results. Overall this is the most robust data set ever analyzed from the first few days of stratospheric residence of a volcanic cloud.

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