Geometric estimation of volcanic eruption column height from GOES-R near-limb imagery – Part 2: Case studies

Horváth, Ákos; Girina, Olga A.; Carr, James L.; 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-21-12207-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12207-2021

© 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-21-12207-2021

© 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 2: Case studies

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

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Final revised paper (published on 16 Aug 2021)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Mar 2021)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1: 'Comment on acp-2021-156', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Jun 2021

General comments:

The authors apply the near-limb geometric methodology described in Part 1 to seven different eruptions (5 volcanoes) from 2019 to 2020. GOES side view results are compared with heights from the brightness temperature method (tested with some different temperature profiles), from stereo retrievals using simultaneous Himawari-8 images and from ground-based webcam or photos.

Also in this case the manuscript is clear and very detailed. Each eruption is presented accurately and possible explanations are given for the different results of the various methodologies. If I really have to find a fault, maybe in some cases I would have preferred a little more concise discussion on the results.

Specific comments:

L 46: Himawari-8 dark pixel BT11 with ERA5 profiles is used too. Right?

Table 1: Why didn't you also put the webcam/quadcopter heigths results in table 1 ?

Figure 14c and S3: the red triangle indicating the volcano is not clearly visible, is it possible to enlarge it or/and make it with a different color?

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-156-RC1
RC2: 'Comment on acp-2021-156', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Jun 2021

The manuscript builds on the same titled manuscript part 1, where the methodology is described. It seems that the part 1 can be considered as a self standing work and this part 2 presents application of the methodology on several eruptions. From the perspective of volcanology, this manuscript documents several eruptive events and it makes sense to publish it as long the part 1 is published as well. Part 2 compares the results of the proposed methodology with BT based results as with the in situ observations. As the manuscript suggests, the proposed methodology is superior to the BT estimates currently in use also for operational services.

As I have no major comments on the manuscript, I suggest publishing the manuscript after some minor corrections:

Fig1: make larger symbols for volcanoes, it is difficult to see them

Fig3 and the following figs: red diamond is almost invisible on a red line, change colour of the line.

515: “3D Winds” method you apparently describe in the part 1 is not totally novel as suggested, see the link below, the authors used a triplet of two sequential SEVIRI and a MODIS image to consider the influence of wind on the height estimation.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/2589/2013/

The same methodology has been applied also on a combination of images from geostationary orbits:

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/3/371

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-156-RC2
AC1: 'Comment on acp-2021-156', Akos Horvath, 02 Jul 2021

We thank the Referees for their constructive comments. In the following, we give a point-by-point response to each of the issues raised.
Referee #1

L 46: Himawari-8 dark pixel BT11 with ERA5 profiles is used too. Right?
Yes. We have corrected the sentence accordingly.
Table 1: Why didn't you also put the webcam/quadcopter heigths results in table 1?
We have added an extra column to Table 1, showing the webcam/quadcopter heights.
Figure 14c and S3: the red triangle indicating the volcano is not clearly visible, is it possible to enlarge it or/and make it with a different color?
We have enlarged the triangle and also added the letter ‘R’ next to it to more clearly indicate the location of Raikoke in these figures.
Referee #2

Fig1: make larger symbols for volcanoes, it is difficult to see them.
We have increased the size of the triangles and of the capital letters indicating the volcanoes.
Fig3 and the following figs: red diamond is almost invisible on a red line, change colour of the line.
We have changed the color of the line and occasionally that of the diamond too in all relevant figures, including Figs. 8 and 10 in Part 1 and supplementary Figs. S1 and S2. The baseline and the volcano are now marked in different colors.
515: “3D Winds” method you apparently describe in the part 1 is not totally novel as suggested, see the link below, the authors used a triplet of two sequential SEVIRI and a MODIS image to consider the influence of wind on the height estimation.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/2589/2013/

The same methodology has been applied also on a combination of images from geostationary orbits:

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/3/371
We have deleted the word ‘novel’ and added a sentence to this paragraph, noting that a similar stereo method has previously been developed for Meteosat imagery by Zakšek et al. (2013) and Dehnavi et al. (2020).

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-156-AC1

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Akos Horvath on behalf of the Authors (02 Jul 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (06 Jul 2021) by Peter Haynes

Short summary

We demonstrate the side view plume height estimation technique described in Part 1 on seven volcanic eruptions from 2019 and 2020, including the 2019 Raikoke eruption. We explore the strengths and limitations of the new technique in comparison to height estimation from brightness temperatures, stereo observations, and ground-based video footage.