Model simulation of air pollution due to April 2010 Iceland volcano eruption

Abstract

The eruption of Iceland volcano Eyjafjallajokull in April 2010 caused enormous disruption to air transport over Europe over a long period of time. The losses and inconveniences for air companies, common business and usual passengers are difficult to estimate but in any case are rather considerable. There are few centres devoted to observation and forecast of such events. The ENSEMBLE consortium led by European JRC in Ispra, Italy, which is aimed at elaborating ensemble forecast on the base of individual forecasts of almost all European Emergency Response Systems (ERS) in case of nuclear accident, decided to launch a series of exercises, devoted to simulation of the first week air pollution dilution caused by Iceland volcano eruption. Bulgarian ERS (BERS) was upgraded to be able to take part in these exercises. This work presents the results of BERS participation in the exercises and comparison with other model results. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.