Ozone depletion in tropospheric volcanic plumes
We measured ozone O₃ concentrations in the atmospheric plumes of the volcanoes St. Augustine (1976), Mt. Etna (2004, 2009) and Eyjafjallajökull (2010) and found O₃ to be strongly depleted compared to the background at each volcano. At Mt. Etna O₃ was depleted within tens of seconds from the crater,...
| Published in: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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| Other Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
American Geophysical Union
2010
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-003-749 https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GL044997 |
| Summary: | We measured ozone O₃ concentrations in the atmospheric plumes of the volcanoes St. Augustine (1976), Mt. Etna (2004, 2009) and Eyjafjallajökull (2010) and found O₃ to be strongly depleted compared to the background at each volcano. At Mt. Etna O₃ was depleted within tens of seconds from the crater, the age of the St. Augustine plumes was on the order of hours, whereas the O₃ destruction in the plume of Eyjafjallajökull was maintained in 1-9 day old plumes. The most likely cause for this O₃ destruction are catalytic bromine reactions as suggested by a model that manages to reproduce the very early destruction of O₃ but also shows that O₃ destruction is ongoing for several days. Given the observed rapid and sustained destruction of O₃, heterogeneous loss of O₃ on ash is unlikely to be important. |
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