Developing Resilience to Icelandic Volcanic Eruptions

2010年冰岛埃亚菲亚德拉火山爆发时，对欧洲领空的大规模限制导致航空业和全球经济遭受重大经济损失。英国气象局火山灰咨询中心（VAAC）负责提供冰岛火山灰的预测，现在已经建立了一个由英国各地的10个地面遥感站点组成的新网络，提供火山灰质量浓度的独立估计。该网络使用太阳光度计和激光雷达的组合来估计火山灰的浓度。气象局还配备了气象局民用应急飞机（MOCCA; http：//www.metoffice.gov.uk/publicsector/emergencies/civil_contingency_aircraft），该飞机配备了激光雷达和现场气溶胶采样仪器。DRIVE将拥有从这些设施获取数据的独特途径，并将使用现场观测来评估激光雷达和太阳光度计遥感检索的准确性。学生将使用英国气象局和其他模型（http：sds-was.aemet.es/forecast-products/dust-forecasts/compared-dust-forecasts）对英国上空矿物粉尘（火山灰的代理）的常规预报，以评估撒哈拉沙尘爆发即将发生的时间（典型的提前时间为48-72小时）。学生和主管将指导MOCCA在受撒哈拉沙尘影响的选定无云激光雷达/太阳光度计站点上进行专用飞行。学生将分析飞机现场测量的气溶胶粒径分布、散射的垂直剖面和来自浊度计的气溶胶光学厚度，并将使用辐射散射和传输代码来推导气溶胶特定消光系数，用于反演算法。学生将评估矿物尘埃浓度的地面和飞机激光雷达反演，从而客观评估与每一个相关的不确定性。学生还将使用飞机数据来评估和提高全球数值天气预报和空气质量模型中矿物粉尘预报的准确性。

When Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted in 2010, the large scale restrictions on European airspace resulted in significant financial loss across the airline industry and the global economy. The Met Office Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) is responsible for providing forecasts of volcanic ash from Icelandic volcanoes and has now established a new network of ten ground-remote sensing sites across the UK providing independent estimates of the mass concentration of volcanic ash. This network uses a combination of sun-photometers and lidars to estimate the volcanic ash concentration. The Met Office is also resourced with the Met Office Civil Contingency Aircraft (MOCCA; http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publicsector/emergencies/civil_contingency_aircraft) equipped with a lidar and in-situ instrumentation for sampling aerosols.DRIVE will have unique access to data from these facilities and will use in-situ observations to assess the accuracy of the lidar and sun-photometer remote sensing retrievals. The student will use routine forecasts of mineral dust (a proxy for volcanic ash) over the UK from the Met Office and other models (http:sds-was.aemet.es/forecast-products/dust-forecasts/compared-dust-forecasts), to assess when a Saharan dust outbreak is imminent (typical lead-time of 48-72 hours). The student and supervisors will direct MOCCA to perform dedicated flights over selected cloud-free lidar/sun-photometer sites impacted by Saharan dust. The student will analyse aircraft in-situ measurements of the aerosol size distribution, the vertical profile of the scattering and aerosol optical depth derived from nephelometers and will use radiative scattering and transfer codes to derive the aerosol specific extinction coefficient for use in the inversion algorithms. The student will assess the surface- and aircraft-based lidar retrievals of mineral dust concentration allowing an objective assessment of the uncertainty associated with each. The student will also use the aircraft data to assess and improve the accuracy of forecasts of mineral dust from the global numerical weather prediction and air quality models.