On June 6, 2009, a plume of volcanic dust from the Sarychev volcano in Russia was observed by Professor Norman O’Neill by using the CORAL Net lidar instrument in Sherbrooke and a sun photometer (AEROCAN network). The lidar, which is the optical equivalent to a radar using a laser, allows the measurement of the composition of the atmosphère from the ground.
The figure below shows the fraction of light emitted by the lidar and returned towards the ground. The light is proportional to the quantity of aerosols in the atmosphere. A thin plum can be observed in the figure below around 10 km above Mont Bellevue in Sherbrooke (coloured green in the figure). By using a network of ground-based instruments at various locations in Canada combined with data from satellite remote sensing, the researchers at Cartel can follow the movement of the cloud of aerosols from Russia to Sherbrooke.
La figure ci-dessus montre une analyse plus poussée qui permet aux chercheurs de séparer ces particules selon différentes catégories de taille pour des études plus approfondies de leur dynamique dans l’atmosphère.
