The Role of TOMS in Understanding the Fates of Volcanic Emissions Gregg Bluth Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences

The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) has observed over 100 eruptions during the past 25 years, from both explosive and effusive sources. The four TOMS instruments (Nimbus-7, Meteor, ADEOS, and Earth Probe) have generated an unprecedented archive of eruption data and allowed us to look at processes, in addition to describing individual events. The TOMS sensors are less affected by atmospheric water vapor and optical thickness than infrared techniques, and thus are able to return information on the cloud from it's early, most concentrated form, to dilute cloudmasses several days later. From the many observations and advances generated from TOMS data, here we document those which pertain to the first few days following emission into the atmosphere: removal rates of SO2 from the atmosphere, temporary sequestration of SO2 by ice particles, and separation of gas and particle phases in volcanic plumes.