Development of Volcanic Plume Tracking Model 'PUFF' using Real-time Weather Data

The purpose of the study is to develop and improve the volcanic plume tracking model so-called 'PUFF' for an arbitrary volcano in the world using high quality upper air wind data predicted by the operational weather prediction centers. The centers, which provide the upper air wind data, include Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), National Weather Service (NWS) in the USA, and European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The PUFF model is developed at the computer system in the University of Tsukuba Japan using the predicted gridded point values (GPV) of wind data provided by JMA, then it is transplanted to the computer system in International Arctic Research Center (IARC) using the GPV data by NWS and/or ECMWF. The achievement of this study includes following items: (1) Quantitative evaluation of the order of the error contained in the predicted wind field in JMA, NWS, and ECMWF. (2) Further tuning of the physical parameters such as the diffusion coefficient and fall out speed of volcanic ash in the PUFF model. (3) Expansion of the model domain from the local area near Alaska and Japan to any volcano in the world. (4) Improvement of the Graphic User Interface (GUI) to describe the 3-D perspective image of volcanic ash over topography. (5) Producing hazard maps around active or possibly active volcanos as an application of the PUFF model.