The Mt Etna SO2 Eruption in December 2015 – the View from Space

The SO2 plume from the eruption of Mt Etna in Sicily on 3 December 2015 crossed Asia and reached the west Pacific Ocean in 4 days. By 10 December, it had reached the Atlantic Ocean. Smaller eruptions followed, with some of the plumes travelling northwards and reaching the UK. This paper describes the plume and tracks its evolution using measurements from the IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer) instrument on the MetOpA/B satellites.