Transport of Volcanic Aerosols of Nishinoshima Island To Southern Taiwan as Observed with Aerosol Lidar

At the beginning of August 2020, Taiwan experienced a short-term serious air pollution incident. In many areas, PM2.5/PM10 increased by 3 times compared to the daily average. This time the source of pollution is exceptional because the event was from a volcanic eruption. West Island is located 2,000 kilometers northeast of Taiwan. There have been several eruptions in history, and the 2013 eruption even expanded the island's area. The West Island reignited in December 2019, and there will be a relatively large eruption from July to August 2020. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the erupted material reached an altitude of 5 kilometers. At the end of July, the eruption followed the high air currents and reached the Taiwan area, first affecting the Taitung area. This incident has been recorded in the news. Volcanic aerosol also affects Kaohsiung. From August 5th to 7th, Sun Yat-sen Lidar continuously discovered a volcanic gas gel layer from the ground to 2 kilometers above the ground. In conjunction with other observational data such as solar photometers and monitoring by the Environmental Protection Agency, the research team of the Aerosol Science Research Center also conducted in-depth analysis and reports on this incident. The full content has been published in Applied Optics (link).