Estimation of volcanic mass eruption rate: a radar-based approach

What is it about?

Volcanic ash may cause hardship and damages in areas surrounding volcanoes, representing a serious hazard to aircrafts. Real-time monitoring of such phenomena is crucial for this reason and for initializing ash dispersion models. In this perspective, the mass discharge (eruption) rate is a key information to use dispersal models . This work proposes a new methodology based on the combination of weather radar measurements and thermal camera observations to derive the mass discharge rate. The performance analysis, carried out on four eruptions originated by mount Etna (Sicily, Italy) occurred on December 2015, showed promising results that might have a significant impact on the operational community.

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Why is it important?

Firstly, the methology propose a robust algorithm framework to estimate the volcanic ash mass concentration and mean diameters from C- and X-band radar measurements. Secondly, the analytical derivation of the mass discharge (eruption) rate is described to infer it from near-source radar estimation of concentration and mean diameter in combination with the exit velocity derived by thermal camera measurements. The procedure can be tailored to any the volcanic scenario. Furthermore, the use of polarimetric observations provides interesting information on the vertical structure of the ash plume, including the size of the eruption column and the height of the gas thrust region.