El Chichon cloud over central Europe

The northward transport of stratospheric aerosol masses originating from the April 1982 volcanic eruption of the Mexican volcano El Chichon has been observed by lidar at Garmisch-Partenkirchen (FRG). From June to October 1982 two layers, one below and one above 20 km, could be observed. From October on one layer extended from the tropopause to about 30 km. Maximum backscattering from this layer was recorded during the first two months in 1983. Thereafter the El Chichon aerosol apparently entered the decay phase. Observed backscattering has been converted to optical depth and column mass values, peaking in January 1983 with 0.2 at 550 nm and 0.06 g mE-2, respectively. The El Chichon eruption has also been compared to other high reaching eruptions since 1979, exceeding all of them by at least one order of magnitude. (IFU)