A study of the arrival over the United Kingdom in April 2010 of the Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud using ground-based lidar and numerical simulations

Devenish, B.J., Thomson, D.J., Marenco, F., Leadbetter, S.J., Ricketts, H. and Dacre, H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4328-9126 (2012) A study of the arrival over the United Kingdom in April 2010 of the Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud using ground-based lidar and numerical simulations. Atmospheric Environment, 48. pp. 152-164. ISSN 1352-2310 doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.06.033

Abstract/Summary

We make a qualitative and quantitative comparison of numericalsimulations of the ashcloud generated by the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in April2010 with ground-basedlidar measurements at Exeter and Cardington in southern England. The numericalsimulations are performed using the Met Office’s dispersion model, NAME (Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment). The results show that NAME captures many of the features of the observed ashcloud. The comparison enables us to estimate the fraction of material which survives the near-source fallout processes and enters into the distal plume. A number of simulations are performed which show that both the structure of the ashcloudover southern England and the concentration of ash within it are particularly sensitive to the height of the eruption column (and the consequent estimated mass emission rate), to the shape of the vertical source profile and the level of prescribed ‘turbulent diffusion’ (representing the mixing by the unresolved eddies) in the free troposphere with less sensitivity to the timing of the start of the eruption and the sedimentation of particulates in the distal plume.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/26602
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Elsevier
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