Comparison of TOMS and AVHRR Volcanic Ash Retrievals from the August 1992 Eruption of Mt. Spurr

N.A. Krotkov, O. Torres, C. Seftor, A.J. Krueger, A. Kostinski, W.I. Rose, G,J.S. Bluth, D. Schneider, S.J. Schaefer
Raytheon ITSS Corp 4400 Forbes Boulevard Lanham, MD 20706 USA

Abstract:

On August 19, 1992, the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard NOAA-12 and NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) onboard the Nimbus-7 satellite simultaneously detected and mapped the ash cloud from the eruption of Mt. Spurr, Alaska. The spatial extent and geometry of the cloud derived from the two datasets are in good agreement and both AVHRR split window IR and the TOMS UV Aerosol Index methods give the same range of total cloud ash mass. Redundant methods for determination of ash masses in drifting volcanic clouds offer many advantages for potential application to the mitigation of aircraft hazards.

AGU Index Terms: 3360 Remote Sensing; 8419 Eruption monitoring; 0370 Volcanic effects
Keywords/Free Terms: Volcanic ash, UV remote sensing, IR remote sensing, aviation hazards, Mt. Spurr.

Geophysical Res. Ltrs. 1998GL900278
Vol. 26 , No. 4 , p. 455