Aerosol emissions and gravity waves of Taal volcano

The Taal volcano (14.0 N, 121.0 E) in Philippines erupted in January–February 2020, with a part of aerosols drifted northward and detected by a lidar system at Kaohsiung city (22.37 N, 120.15 E), Taiwan. The aerosol observed on Feb 11 is special for its high-altitude distributions at 4–7 km with discrete structures which can be resolved into a sinusoidal oscillation of ~ 30 min period, suggesting a case of wave event caused by the eruptions. We report in this paper the gravity wave generated by the volcanic eruptions and its effects on aerosol emissions. By studying the temperature and pressure data in the Taal region using radiosonde data, we found atmospheric gravity waves with powers correlated with the optical thickness (AOD) at 550 nm measured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) satellite. This study presents the first observation of modulation of the aerosol emissions by the volcanic gravity waves and a case of coupling of dynamics and chemistry.