Identifying eruptive sources of drifting volcanic ash clouds using back-trajectory modeling of spaceborne thermal infrared data

• Published in: Bulletin of volcanology 2019-09, Vol.81 (9), p.1-13, Article 53
• Main Authors: Williams, Daniel B., Ramsey, Michael S., Wickens, Daniel J., Karimi, Bobak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Anomalies; Cloud detection; Cloud height; Clouds; Data; Detection; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Geology; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geostatistics; Mineralogy; Research Article; Sedimentology; Volcanic ash; Volcanic eruptions; Volcanoes; Volcanology
• ISSN: 0258-8900; 1432-0819
• DOI: 10.1007/s00445-019-1312-y

A new approach is presented for determining the source region of disconnected volcanic ash clouds using a combination of orbital thermal infrared (TIR) image data, HYSPLIT-generated backward trajectories, and spatial geostatistics. Interpolated surfaces derived from the TIR data are created to find the most likely ash cloud travel path and the potential source volcanoes identified from that path. The ability to use backward trajectories to determine the ash cloud source region will become an important triggering tool to target high spatial resolution orbital sensors, which normally rely on thermal anomalies for new targeting. During cases where thermal anomalies are not present or masked by meteorological cloud, ash cloud detection and predicted source location become more important. Image data from several well-documented past eruptions are presented to validate and determine the overall accuracy of this technique. Because this is seen as a limited range source region validation tool, the ash clouds examined were