Abstract
The Eyjafjallajökull eruption of 2010 demonstrated the far-reaching impact of ash clouds and the vulnerability of our jet-based society to them, prompting a review of procedures to detect, warn, and forecast ash cloud hazards to aviation. The years since 2010 have seen marked improvements in satellite technology, more accurate ash-dispersion models that integrate simulations with observations, and more thoroughly vetted and harmonized procedures for forecasting and communicating hazards. In the coming decade, we expect these trends to continue, with formal warning products migrating from text and simplified maps to 4D data streams. This paper details some of these advancements and challenges ahead.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the reviewers. For the U.S. NOAA author (MPP), the views, opinions, and findings contained in this report are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as an official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, policy, or decision. SLE was supported by the Global Geological Risk Research Platform of the British Geological Survey NC-ODA grant NE/R000069/1: Geoscience for Sustainable Futures and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project EUROVOLC (grant agreement no. 731070) and publishes with permission of the CEO, British Geological Survey.
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This paper constitutes part of a topical collection: Looking Backwards and Forwards in Volcanology: A Collection of Perspectives on the Trajectory of a Science
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Mastin, L., Pavolonis, M., Engwell, S. et al. Progress in protecting air travel from volcanic ash clouds. Bull Volcanol 84, 9 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-021-01511-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-021-01511-x