Earth System Science Data www.earth-syst-sci-data.net 1866-3508 1866-3516 3 1 2011 10.5194/essd-3-9-2011 http://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/3/9/2011/ http://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/3/9/2011/essd-3-9-2011.html http://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/3/9/2011/essd-3-9-2011.pdf 9 17 2011-09-05 Observations of the altitude of the volcanic plume during the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, April–May 2010 P. Arason arason@vedur.is G. N. Petersen H. Bjornsson Icelandic Meteorological Office, Reykjavik, Iceland The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010 lasted for 39 days, 14 April&ndash;23 May. The eruption had two explosive phases separated by a phase with lava formation and reduced explosive activity. The height of the plume was monitored every 5 min with a C-band weather radar located in Keflavík International Airport, 155 km distance from the volcano. Furthermore, several web cameras were mounted with a view of the volcano, and their images saved every five seconds. Time series of the plume-top altitude were constructed from the radar observations and images from a web camera located in the village Hvolsvöllur at 34 km distance from the volcano. This paper presents the independent radar and web camera time series and performs cross validation. The results show good agreement between the time series for the range when both series are available. However, while the radar altitudes are semi-discrete the data availability was much higher than for the web camera, indicating how essential weather radars are as eruption plume monitoring devices. The echo top radar series of the altitude of the volcanic plume are publicly available from the Pangaea Data Publisher (<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.760690" target="_blank">http://dx.doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.760690</a>). Bursik, M.: Effect of wind on the rise height of volcanic plumes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 3621–3624, 2001. Carn, S A., Prata, A J., and Karlsdottir, S.: Circumpolar transport of a volcanic cloud from Hekla (Iceland), J. Geophys. Res., 113, D14311, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JD009878doi:10.1029/2008JD009878, 2008. Crochet, P.: Enhancing radar estimates of precipitation over complex terrain using information derived from an orographic precipitation model, J. Hydrol., 377, 417–433, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.08.038doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.08.038, 2009. Graf, H.-F., Herzog, M., Oberhuber, J M., and Textor, C.: The effect of environmental conditions on volcanic plume rise, J. Geophys. Res., 104, 24309–24320, 1999. Lacasse, C., Karlsdóttir, S., Larsen, G., Soosalu, H., Rose, W I., and Ernst, G. G J.: Weather radar observations of the Hekla 2000 eruption cloud, Iceland, Bull. Volcanol., 66, 457–473, 2004. Larsen, G., Vilmundardóttir, E., and Þorkelsson, B.: Heklugosið 1991: Gjóskufallið og gjóskulagið frá fyrsta degi gossins (The Hekla eruption of 1991 – The tephra fall), Náttúrufræðingurinn, 61, 159–176, 1991. Oddson, B.: The Grímsvötn eruption in 2004: Dispersal and total mass of tephra and comparison with plume transport models, Master's thesis, University of Iceland, 2007. Petersen, G N.: A short meteorological overview of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption 14 April–23 May 2010, Weather, 65, 203–207, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wea.634doi:10.1002/wea.634, 2010. Prata, A J.: Satellite detection of hazardous volcanic clouds and the risk to global air traffic, Nat. Hazards, 51, 303–304, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11069-008-9273-zdoi:10.1007/s11069-008-9273-z, 2009. Rhinehart, R E.: Radar for Meteorologists, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, 1991. Tupper, A., Textor, C., Herzog, M., Graf, H.-F., and Richards, M S.: Tall clouds from small eruptions: the sensitivity of eruption height and fine ash content to tropospheric instability, Nat. Hazards, 51, 375–401, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9433-9doi:10.1007/s11069-009-9433-9, 2009. Vogfjörd, K S., Jakobsdóttir, S S., Gudmundsson, G B., Roberts, M J., Ágústsson, K., Arason, P., Geirsson, H., Karlsdóttir, S., Hjaltadóttir, S., Ólafsdóttir, U., Thorbjarnardóttir, B., Skaftadóttir, T., Sturkell, E., Jónasdóttir, E B., Hafsteinsson, G., Sveinbjörnsson, H., Stefánsson, R., and Jónsson, T V.: Forecasting and monitoring a subglacial eruption in Iceland, EOS Trans. AGU, 86, 245–248, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005EO260001doi:10.1029/2005EO260001, 2005.