Airborne Measurements of the Eyjafjallajokull volcanic ash plume over North-Western Germany with a light aircraft and an optical particle counter - first results

During the eruption phase of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull in April/May 2010 the University of Applied Sciences Duesseldorf has performed 14 measurement flights over north-western Germany in the time period of 23 April 2010 to 21 May 2010. Additionally 4 flights have been performed for visual observations, referencing and transfer. The measurement flights have been performed in situations, where the ash plume was present over north-western Germany as well as in situations, when there was no ash plume predicted. For the measurements a light aircraft (Flight Design CTSW Shortwing) was used, which was equipped with an optical particle counter (Grimm 1.107). Additionally the aircraft was equipped for one flight with an UV-DOAS system and a CO2-measurement system. The optical particle counter allowed in-situ measurements of the particle distribution between 250 nm and 32 mu m and of PM10, PM2.5 and PM1. The ash plume appeared during the measurements as inhomogeneous in structure. Layers or multilayers of one hundred meters to a few hundred meters vertical depth of ash plume could be identified. Sub-plumes with a horizontal extension of several kilometres to several tenths of kilometres could be found. The layers of the ash plume could be found in altitudes between 2500m and 4500m. The measured concentrations have been compared with the concentration and extension of the ash plume predicted by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC).