Assessing potential impact of explosive volcanic eruptions from Jan Mayen Island (Norway) on aviation in the North Atlantic

• Main Authors: Titos, Manuel, Martínez Montesinos, Beatriz, Barsotti, Sara, Sandri, Laura, Folch, Arnau, Mingari, Leonardo, Macedonio, Giovanni, Costa, Antonio
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Jan Mayen; Norway; Jan Mayen Island; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2021-264; https://nhess.copernicus.org/preprints/nhess-2021-264/

Volcanic eruptions are amongst the most jeopardizing natural events due to their potential impacts on life, assets, and environment. In particular, atmospheric dispersal of volcanic tephra and aerosols during the explosive eruptions poses a serious threat to life and has significant consequences for infrastructures and global aviation safety. The volcanic island of Jan Mayen, located in the North Atlantic under trans-continental air traffic routes, is considered the northernmost active volcanic area in the world, with at least five eruptive periods recorded during the last 200 years. However, quantitative hazard assessments on the possible consequences for air traffic of a future ash-forming eruption are nonexistent. This study presents the first comprehensive long-term volcanic hazard assessment for Jan Mayen volcanic island in terms of ash dispersal and airborne tephra concentration at different flight levels. In order to delve in the characterization and modelling of that potential impact, a probabilistic approach based on merging a large number of numerical simulations is adopted, varying the volcano’s Eruptive Source Parameters (ESPs) and meteorological scenario. Each ESP value is randomly sampled following a continuous Probability Density Function (PDF) defined from the Jan Mayen geological record. Over 20 years of climatic data are considered in order to explore the natural variability associated with meteorological conditions and used to run thousands of simulations of the ash dispersal model FALL3D on a 2 km-resolution grid. The simulated scenarios are combined to produce probability maps of airborne ash concentration, arrival time and persistence at different flight levels in the atmosphere. The resulting maps represent an aid to civil protection, decision makers and aviation stakeholders in assessing and preventing the potential impact from a future eruption at Jan Mayen.