Measurement report: Violent biomass burning and volcanic eruptions – a new period of elevated stratospheric aerosol over central Europe (2017 to 2023) in a long series of observations

Abstract

The highlight of the meanwhile 50 years of lidar-based aerosol profiling at Garmisch-Partenkirchen has been the measurements of stratospheric aerosol since 1976. After a technical breakdown in 2016, they have been continued with a new, much more powerful system in a vertical range up to almost 50 km a.s.l. (above sea level) that allowed for observing very weak volcanic aerosol up to almost 40 km. The observations since 2017 are characterized by a number of spectacular events, such as the Raikoke volcanic plume equalling in integrated backscatter coefficient that of Mt St Helens in 1981 and severe smoke from several big fires in North America and Siberia with backscatter coefficients up to the maximum values after the Pinatubo eruption. The smoke from the violent 2017 fires in British Columbia gradually reached more than 20 km a.s.l., unprecedented in our observations. The sudden increase in frequency of such strong events is difficult to understand. Finally, the plume of the spectacular underwater eruption on the Tonga Islands in the southern Pacific in January 2022 was detected between 20 and 25 km.