Interactive Radiative Transfer Modeling Tools to Map Volcanic Emissions with Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing

The estimation of plume composition from thermal infrared (TIR) radiance measurements is based in radiative transfer (RT) modeling. To model the observed spectra we must consider the temperature, emissivity, and elevation of the surface beneath the plume, plume altitude and thickness, and the local atmospheric temperature and humidity. Our knowledge of these parameters is never perfect, and interactive RT modeling allows us to evaluate the impact of these uncertainties on our estimates of plume composition. Interactive RT modeling has three main components: retrieval procedures for plume components, an engine for RT calculations, and a graphic user interface (GUI) to input radiance data, modify model parameters, launch retrievals, and visualize the resulting estimates of plume composition. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in collaboration with Spectral Sciences, Inc. (SSI), is developing a new class of tools for interactive RT modeling. We will implement RT modeling on graphics processors (GPU) to achieve a 100-fold increase in processing speed, relative to conventional CPU-based processing, and thus enable fully-interactive estimation and visualization of plume composition. The heritage for our new tools is based on the Plume Tracker toolkit, developed at JPL, and MODTRAN RT model, developed by SSI. Plume Tracker integrates retrieval procedures, interactive visualization tools, and an interface to a modified version of MODTRAN under a single GUI. Our new tools will incorporate refinements from a recent adaptation of MODTRAN to optimize modeling the radiative properties of chemical clouds. This presentation will include a review of the foundations of plume mapping in the TIR and examples of the application of Plume Tracker to ASTER, MODIS, and AIRS data. We will present an overview of our tool development effort and discuss the application of these tools to data from new and future instruments, such as the airborne Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer and TIR data from the upcoming Hyperspectral Infrared Imager mission. Portions of this research were conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.