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Separating the thermal fingerprints of lava flows and simultaneous lava fountaining using ground-based thermal camera and SEVIRI measurements

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<mark>Journal publication date</mark>16/10/2013
<mark>Journal</mark>Geophysical Research Letters
Issue number19
Volume40
Number of pages6
Pages (from-to)5058-5063
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date3/10/13
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

uring effusive eruptions, thermal satellite monitoring has proved well suited to map thethermal flux from lava flows. However, during lava fountaining events, thermal contributions from active flows and from the fountain itself cannot be separated in low resolution satellite data. Here using photogrammetry and atmospheric modeling techniques, we compare radiance estimates from long-range ground-based thermal camera data (from which the fountain
can be excluded) with those from SEVIRI satellite images for a fountaining event at Mount Etna (12 August 2011). The radiant heat flux determined from the ground-based camera showed similar behavior to values retrieved from
Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI); thus the SEVIRI signal is interpreted to be dominated by the lava flows, with minimal contribution from the fountain. Furthermore, by modeling the cooling phase of each pixel
inundated by lava, the mean thickness and lava volume (~2.4×10^6 m3) derived from camera images are comparable with those calculated from SEVIRI (~2.8×10^6 m3).