Impact of meteorological clouds on satellite detection and retrieval of volcanic ash during the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 and Grímsvötn 2011 eruptions: a modelling study
Authors: Kylling A. , Kristiansen N. , Stohl A. , Buras-Schnell R. , Emde C. , Gasteiger J. 
Published: November 2014

Abstract. Volcanic ash is commonly observed by infrared detectors on board Earth orbiting satellites. In the presence of ice and/or liquid water clouds the detected volcanic ash signature may be altered. In this paper the effect of ice and liquid water clouds on detection and retrieval of volcanic ash is quantified by simulating synthetic equivalents to satellite infrared images with a 3-D radiative transfer model. The simulations were made both with and without realistic water and ice clouds taken from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) analysis data. The volcanic ash cloud fields were taken from simulations by the Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART. The radiative transfer calculations were made for the geometry and channels of the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI), for the full duration of the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 and Grímsvötn 2011 eruptions. The synthetic SEVIRI images were then used as input to standard reverse absorption ash detection and retrieval methods. Meteorological clouds were on average found to reduce the number of detected ash affected pixels by 6–12%. However, the effect was highly variable and for individual scenes up to 40% of pixels with mass loading > 0.2 g m−2 could not be detected due to the presence of water and ice clouds. The detection efficiency (detected ash pixels relative to Flexpart ash pixels with ash loading > 0.2 g m−2) was on average only 14.6% (22.1%) for the cloudy (cloudless) simulation for the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 eruption, and 3.6% (10.0%) for the Grímsvötn 2011 eruption. If only Flexpart ash pixels with ash loading > 1.0 g m−2 are considered the detection efficiency increase to 54.7% (74.7) for the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 eruption and to 4.8% (15.1%) for the Grímsvötn 2011 eruption. For coincident pixels, i.e., pixels where ash was both present in the Flexpart simulation and detected by the algorithm, the presence of meteorological clouds overall increased the retrieved mean mass loading for the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 eruption by about 13%, while for the Grímsvötn 2011 eruption ash mass loadings the effect was a 4% decrease of the retrieved ash mass loading. However, larger differences were seen between scenes (SD of ±30 and ±20% for Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn respectively) and even larger ones within scenes. If all pixels are included the total mass from all scenes is severely underestimated. For the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 eruption the cloudless (cloudy) mass is underestimateed by 52% (66%) compared to the Flexpart mass, while for the Grímsvötn 2011 eruption the Flexpart mass is underestimated by 82% (91%) for the cloudless (cloudy) simulation. The impact of ice and liquid water clouds on the detection and retrieval of volcanic ash, implies that to fully appreciate the location and amount of ash, satellite ash measurements should be combined with ash dispersion modelling.