Numerical Simulation of Long Distance Transportation of Volcano Ash from Pinatubo

More than 100 jet aircrafts have encountered volcanic ash clouds in the past. In these cases, volcano ash had caused serious damage to the aircraft engines, control surfaces, windshields, and landing lights. In most cases, volcano ash clouds, transported by atmospheric winds far from its source, are not detectable by the present generation of radar instrumentation carried aboard aircraft. Here we employ a long distance transport model to simulate the concentration field of volcano ash. After averaging the trajectories for 168 cases both in summer and spring we obtain four routines for volcano ash clouds to move toward China. A typical case study show that if Pinatubo volcano in Philippine erupt in summer, the seven-day long distance transport process cause volcano ash cloud move away to Shangdong province. The highest concentration center can reach 2.8 km altitude above the surface. Another typical case study show that if Pinatubo volcano in Philippine erupt in spring, the seven-day long distance transport process cause volcano ash cloud move away to the coast of Fujian province. The highest concentration center can reach 1.6 km altitude above the surface.