Uncertainties in the inverse modelling of sulphur dioxide eruption profiles

Abstract

An inverse modelling methodology to derive vertical profiles of atmospheric emissions in volcanic eruptions from satellite observations has been developed and applied, inter alia, to sulphur dioxide from the Kasatochi 2008 eruption. In this paper, the method is expanded to yield a posteriori uncertainties of the emission profiles, and sensitivity experiments have been conducted to study the influence of different assumptions for the input parameters. These parameters are the a priori emission profile and its uncertainty, the uncertainties of the observations, and the value of a smoothing parameter. The basic structure of the emission profile with a tropospheric and a stratospheric peak, as well as the heights of these peaks is very robust against the parameter variations. As constraints on the inversion are loosened, the stratospheric peak becomes stronger and sharper. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.