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Ozone depletion in tropospheric volcanic plumes
Author(s) -
Vance Alan,
McGonigle Andrew J. S.,
Aiuppa Alessandro,
Stith Jeffrey L.,
Turnbull Kate,
von Glasow Roland
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2010gl044997
Subject(s) - plume , volcano , impact crater , ozone , atmospheric sciences , troposphere , geology , panache , ozone depletion , bromine , environmental science , earth science , astrobiology , geochemistry , meteorology , stratosphere , chemistry , geography , physics , organic chemistry
We measured ozone (O 3 ) concentrations in the atmospheric plumes of the volcanoes St. Augustine (1976), Mt. Etna (2004, 2009) and Eyjafjallajökull (2010) and found O 3 to be strongly depleted compared to the background at each volcano. At Mt. Etna O 3 was depleted within tens of seconds from the crater, the age of the St. Augustine plumes was on the order of hours, whereas the O 3 destruction in the plume of Eyjafjallajökull was maintained in 1–9 day old plumes. The most likely cause for this O 3 destruction are catalytic bromine reactions as suggested by a model that manages to reproduce the very early destruction of O 3 but also shows that O 3 destruction is ongoing for several days. Given the observed rapid and sustained destruction of O 3 , heterogeneous loss of O 3 on ash is unlikely to be important.