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Icelandic volcanic emissions have been shown historically and more recently to have an impact on public health and aviation across northern and western Europe. The severity of these impacts is governed by the prevailing weather conditions and the nature of the eruption. This study focuses on the former utilizing an existing set of 30 weather patterns produced by the Met Office. Associated daily historical classifications are used to assess which weather patterns are most likely to result in flow from Iceland into four flight information regions (FIRs) covering the British Isles and North Atlantic, which may lead to disruption to aviation during Icelandic volcanic episodes. High-risk weather patterns vary between FIRs, with a total of 14 weather patterns impacting at least one FIR. These high-risk types predominantly have a northwesterly or westerly flow from Iceland into British Isles airspace. Analysis of the historical classifications reveals a typical duration for high-risk periods of 3–5 days, when transitions between high-risk types are considered. High-risk periods lasting over a week are also possible in all four FIRs. Additionally, impacts are more likely in winter months for most FIRs. Knowledge of high-risk weather patterns for aviation can be used within existing operational probabilistic weather pattern forecasting tools. Combined probabilities for high-risk weather patterns can be derived for the medium-range (1–2 weeks ahead) and used to provide a rapid assessment as to the likelihood of flow from Iceland. This weather pattern forecasting application is illustrated using archived forecast data for the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gyres of the Iceland and Greenland Seas are regions of deep-water formation, driven by large ocean-to-atmosphere heat fluxes that have local maxima adjacent to the sea-ice edge. Recently these regions have experienced a dramatic loss of sea ice, including in winter, which begs the question have surface heat fluxes in the adjacent ocean gyres been affected? To address this a set of regional atmospheric climate model simulations has been run with prescribed sea ice and sea surface temperature fields. Three 20-year model experiments have been examined: Icemax, Icemed and Icemin, where the surface fields are set as the year with maximum, median and minimum sea-ice extents respectively. Under conditions of reduced sea-ice extent there is a 15% (19 W m−2) decrease in total wintertime heat fluxes in the Iceland Sea. In contrast, there is an 8% (9 W m−2) increase in heat fluxes in the Greenland Sea primarily due to higher local SSTs. These differences are manifest as changes in the magnitude of high heat flux events (such as cold air outbreaks). In the Iceland Sea, 76% of these events are lower in magnitude during reduced sea-ice conditions. In the Greenland Sea, 93% of these events are higher in magnitude during reduced sea-ice conditions as a result of higher SSTs coincident with retreating sea ice. So, in these experiments, the reduced wintertime sea-ice conditions force a different response in the two seas. In both gyres, large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns are key drivers of high heat flux events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]