Reconstruction of volcanic SO2 flux emission chronology from space-based measurements

A single satellite image framing a volcanic cloud can be regarded as recording the evolution in time of physical and volcanological parameters, effectively capturing many hours of volcanic activity, while a collection of images can offer a valuable record of an entire volcanic eruption process. Here we discuss how SO2 flux time series can be reconstructed using SO2 amount maps retrieved from MODIS infrared images and wind speeds from a meteorological model. Results of this procedure applied to the 2006 Mt. Etna eruption's MODIS data are compared with SO2 flux time series measured by the ground-based FLAME network of UV DOAS instruments surrounding the volcano. We show that quantitative reconstruction of flux time series from satellite data is feasible and that this approach represents a new tool useful to interpret volcanic processes, in particular in poorly monitored remote locations.