Improving volcanic ash predictions with the HYSPLIT dispersion model by assimilating MODIS satellite retrievals

Currently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) runs the HYSPLIT dispersion model with a unit mass release rate to predict the transport and dispersion of volcanic ash. The model predictions provide information for the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAAC) to issue advisories to meteorological watch offices, area control centers, flight information centers, and others. This research aims to provide quantitative forecasts of ash distributions generated by objectively and optimally estimating the volcanic ash source strengths, vertical distribution, and temporal variations using an observation-modeling inversion technique. In this top-down approach, a cost functional is defined to quantify the differences between the model predictions and the satellite measurements of column-integrated ash concentrations weighted by the model and observation uncertainties. Minimizing this cost functional by adjusting the sources provides the volcanic ash emission estimates. As an example, MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite retrievals of the 2008 Kasatochi volcanic ash clouds are used to test the HYSPLIT volcanic ash inverse system. Because the satellite retrievals include the ash cloud top height but not the bottom height, there are different model diagnostic choices for comparing the model results with the observed mass loadings. Three options are presented and tested. Although the emission estimates vary significantly with different options, the subsequent model predictions with the different release estimates all show decent skill when evaluated against the unassimilated satellite observations at later times. Among the three options, integrating over three model layers yields slightly better results than integrating from the surface up to the observed volcanic ash cloud top or using a single model layer. Inverse tests also show that including the ash-free region to constrain the model is not beneficial for the current case. In addition, extra constraints on the source terms can be given by explicitly enforcing no-ash for the atmosphere columns above or below the observed ash cloud top height. However, in this case such extra constraints are not helpful for the inverse modeling. It is also found that simultaneously assimilating observations at different times produces better hindcasts than only assimilating the most recent observations

Summary of meteorological conditions over the North Atlantic Ocean during GCE/CASE/WATOX

During the summer of 1988, a team of scientists aboard the NOAA ship Mt. Mitchell and the NOAA King Air aircraft investigated the spatial distributions of sulfur, nitrogen, and related species and their interactions over the North Atlantic Ocean. In support of these measurements, meteorological data from the National Meteorological Center and from rawinsonde data obtained from the ship were archived and back trajectories were calculated. A summary of the meteorological conditions during the cruise is presented using synoptic maps, soundings, cross sections, and isobaric and isentropic back trajectories. Since day‐to‐day variability of the synoptic situation was generally small, one representative day was chosen to illustrate the overall meteorology. During the cruise, three synoptic regimes were encountered: (1) north of the polar front, (2) under the Bermuda/Azores high, and (3) under the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Soundings from three different days illustrate these regimes. Boundary layer depth and cloud layers were also estimated from all the soundings. Cross sections of temperature, wind, and relative humidity describing the vertical structure of the atmosphere along the cruise show the general day‐to‐day uniformity except near the polar front and near the ITCZ boundary. The back trajectories show general air flow patterns and the land mass source regions of air reaching the ship within three days. For parts of the cruise, air reached the ship from North America, Iceland or Greenland, Africa, and South America. Copyright 1990 by the American Geophysical Union

NOAA’s HYSPLIT Atmospheric Transport and Dispersion Modeling System

Abstract The Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (HYSPLIT), developed by NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory, is one of the most widely used models for atmospheric trajectory and dispersion calculations. We present the model’s historical evolution over the last 30 years from simple hand-drawn back trajectories to very sophisticated computations of transport, mixing, chemical transformation, and deposition of pollutants and hazardous materials. We highlight recent applications of the HYSPLIT modeling system, including the simulation of atmospheric tracer release experiments, radionuclides, smoke originated from wild fires, volcanic ash, mercury, and wind-blown dust.</jats:p