Volcanic Aerosols and its affects on Land Surface Temperature

The purpose of this study is to monitor volcanic aerosol dispersions from recent volcanic eruptions, and see their affects on land surface temperature, years after the volcanic eruptions had occurred. From 2008-2011, there were many volcanic eruptions that occurred across the globe including Alaska's Redoubt and Kasatochi volcanoes, Chile's Chaiten and Puyehue volcanoes, Indonesia's Karangetang and Gamalama volcanoes, etc. The main focus of the study was to examine the trends of volcanic aerosols distribution in the atmosphere over these years. From the same time period and beyond, global land surface temperatures were analyzed from year to year, to see if there were any changes to the temperature of the local region where the volcanic eruption had occurred, as well as global temperature changes. The first part of the study was to examine general volcanic aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere using Giovanni's MODIS Aura & Terra data provided. The next step is to monitor Sulfate concentrations (a key indicator of volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere) using the Aura satellite, mainly OMI instrument data, also from Giovanni's database. The third step is to analyze land surface temperature changes using land surface temperature readings collected from GISSTEMP (Goddard Institute for Space Studies surface temperature analysis). Lastly, the study aims to show that land surface temperature does change in the short term, due to increased concentrations of volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere at the local region, as well as the global scale.