Eyjafjallajökull volcano ash plume operational monitoring all over Europe with ground based and airborne mounted lidars

Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruptions of ash plumes starting on April 2010 paralyzed completely air traffic in Europe for several days. During the crisis, Leosphere has collected 24/24 real time measurements of the backscatter profiles, taken by ALS polarizations lidars spread from Denmark to South of France in order to provide quick looks of the sky at regular intervals to different met agencies and to the VAAC coordinated by UK MetOffice. Moreover, Meteo France supported by other institutions as CNRS, CEA , CNES and Leosphere realized several test flights over France and North Atlantic with an airborne Lidar. These unique data allowed detection and identification of ash plume, which turn to be a very important tool in the decision chain. Discussion about mass concentration evaluation will also be stressed.