Geometric estimation of volcanic eruption column height from GOES-R near-limb imagery – Part 1: Methodology

Horváth, Ákos; Carr, James L.; Girina, Olga A.; Wu, Dong L.; Bril, Alexey A.; Mazurov, Alexey A.; Melnikov, Dmitry V.; Hoshyaripour, Gholam Ali; Buehler, Stefan A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12189-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12189-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Satellite observations, in situ measurements and model simulations...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12189-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 16

Research article

|

16 Aug 2021

Research article |

| 16 Aug 2021

Geometric estimation of volcanic eruption column height from GOES-R near-limb imagery – Part 1: Methodology

Ákos Horváth, James L. Carr, Olga A. Girina, Dong L. Wu, Alexey A. Bril, Alexey A. Mazurov, Dmitry V. Melnikov, Gholam Ali Hoshyaripour, and Stefan A. Buehler

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12189-2021-supplement

Data sets

NOAA GOES-R Series Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) Level 1b Radiances GOES-R Calibration Working Group and GOES-R Series Program https://doi.org/10.7289/V5BV7DSR

Himawari-8/9 gridded data Center for Environmental Remote Sensing (CEReS) http://www.cr.chiba-u.jp/databases/GEO/H8_9/FD/index.html

Volcanoes of the World, v. 4.9.0 Global Volcanism Program https://doi.org/10.5479/si.GVP.VOTW4-2013

KVERT volcano list Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/volcano.php?lang=en

Historical Unidata Internet Data Distribution (IDD) Gridded Model Data National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Weather Service/NOAA/U.S. Department of Commerce, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, and Unidata/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research https://doi.org/10.5065/549X-KE89

Short summary

We give a detailed description of a new technique to estimate the height of volcanic eruption columns from near-limb geostationary imagery. Such oblique angle observations offer spectacular side views of eruption columns protruding from the Earth ellipsoid and thereby facilitate a height-by-angle estimation method. Due to its purely geometric nature, the new technique is unaffected by the limitations of traditional brightness-temperature-based height retrievals.