A comprehensive archive of large SO2 volcanic clouds in the 2000s

Explosive volcanic eruptions can generate SO2 clouds rising to the stratosphere and dispersing on a global scale. Such events are at the origin of many hazards including aircraft engine damages, acid rains, short-term climate changes and health threats. Satellite techniques allow efficient detection of volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere. However, satellite data are scattered amongst the different institutes and agencies acquiring and processing them, and their retrieval is time-consuming. For this reason, we build the first archive gathering SO2 volcanic cloud altitude and dispersion data of 11 VEI 4 volcanic eruptions in the 2000s. This archive includes: - the spatial and temporal SO2 dispersion from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2); - altitude retrieved from the Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) backscatter data, the IASI data and the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO); - the cloud type information from the CALIOP Vertical Feature Mask (VFM) product; - the cloud atmospheric parameters (bending angle, bending angle anomaly, refractivity, temperature, pressure, specific humidity) from the GNSS RO. List of eruptions Okmok 2008; Kasatochi 2008; Sarychev 2009; Eyjafjallajokull 2010; Merapi 2010; Grimsvotn 2011; Nabro 2011; Puyehue Cordon Caulle 2011; Tolbachik 2012; Kelut 2014; Calbuco 2015. The data are provided in NC format and are available as zip folder for each eruption. For detailed description please refer to Tournigand et al. (2020), the data description and the two annex files with the description of the file structures.