BADC and NEODC supports the investigations into the Icelandic Volcano

In response to the volcanic ash plume that entered British airspace from the 14th April, scientists from NERC’s National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) and the European airborne research community (EUFAR) have carried out numerous observations from a variety of research aircraft and ground- based instruments. The BADC has supported these efforts by rapidly responding to the needs of the Atmospheric research community.

In response to the volcanic ash plume that entered British airspace from the 14th April, scientists from NERC’s National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) and the European airborne research community (EUFAR) have carried out numerous observations from a variety of research aircraft and ground- based instruments. The BADC has supported these efforts by rapidly responding to the needs of the Atmospheric research community to set up :

1. A dedicated dataset for the event to collate and help to distribute these findings to the wider community- See http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/eyjafjallajokull_apr2010/

2. The CEDA Volcano Event Notes Mapping Tool provides an interactive time line showing where and when observations took place with quick look plots of these observations to assist in those wishing to find out more about the volcanic ash plume as it passed over the UK. This tool was developed rapidly by a dedicated team within the Centre for Environmental Data Archival (CEDA) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, which runs the British Atmospheric and NERC Earth Observation data centres (BADC and NEODC), in response to the need of the NCAS community to pull together a widely dispersed network of observations within a cohesive environment in response to the event.

In addition, the NEODC and the BADC have assisted NCEO researchers by obtaining various satellite and modelling data to assist in retrivals of ash cloud from satellite imagery.