BSC researchers Alejandro Martí and Arnau Folch are the authors of this paper.
The research article ‘Potential ash impact from Antarctic volcanoes: Insights from Deception Island's most recent eruption’ has been selected as one of the top 100 read Earth sciences papers for Scientific Reports in 2017. The authors are Alejandro Martí and Arnau Folch, researchers in the Environmental Simulations group at BSC, together with A. Geyer and S. Giralt from the ICTJA-CSIC.
Scientific Reports published more than 1500 Earth sciences papers in 2017, and so a position in the top 100 most highly read articles is an extraordinary achievement. You can access all the highly accessed articles within this category by visiting Top 100 in Earth science page.
About the paper
Simulations performed by Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) in collaboration with the ICTJA-CSIC demonstrated that Antarctic volcanoes might pose a higher threat than previously considered. A research focused on the potential impacts of ash dispersal and fallout from Deception Island highlights how ash clouds entrapped in circumpolar upper-level winds have the potential to reach lower latitudes and disrupt Austral hemisphere air traffic. The study has been published in the Nature group journal, Scientific Reports.
The research has been based in different sets of simulations, considering different meteorological scenarios and different eruption characteristics. These simulations demonstrated that ash from lower-latitudes, as those in Deception Island, are likely to encircle the globe even in case of moderate eruptions, as it could reach up to tropical latitudes, a vast part of Atlantic coast of South America, South Africa and/or South Oceania. Thus, a wider dispersion of volcanic particles than previously believed can result in significant consequences for aviation safety in these areas.
Further information about the article here