SO2 AND ASH VOLCANIC PLUME RETRIEVALS FROM THE 24 NOVEMBER 2006 Mt. ETNA ERUPTION USING MSG-SEVIRI DATA: SO2 VALIDATION AND ASH CORRECTION PROCEDURE

Abstract

Estimation of the daily trend of sulfur dioxide and ash from the thermal infrared measurements of the Spin Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI), on board the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) geosynchronous satellite, has been carried out. The SO2 retrieval is validated vicariously by using satellite sensors and with ground measurements. The 24 November 2006 tropospheric eruption of Etna volcano is used as a test case. MSG-SEVIRI is an optical imaging radiometer characterized by 12 spectral channels, a high temporal resolution (one image every 15 minutes), and a 10 km2 footprint. The instrument’s spectral range includes the 7.3 and 8.7 mm bands (channels 6 and 7) used for SO2 retrieval and the 10.8 and 12.0 mm (channels 9 and 10) split window bands used for ash detection and retrievals. The SO2 columnar abundance and ash are retrieved simultaneously by means of a Look-Up Table least squares fit procedure for SO2 and using a Brightness Temperature Difference algorithm for ash. The SO2 retrievals obtained using different satellite sensors such as AIRS and MODIS have been carried out and compared with SEVIRI estimations. The results were validated using the permanent mini-DOAS ground system network (FLAME) installed and operated by INGV on Mt. Etna. Results show that the simultaneous presence of SO2 and ash in a volcanic plume yields a significant error in the SO2 columnar abundance retrieval in multispectral Thermal Infrared (TIR) data. The ash plume particles with high effective radius (from 1 to 10 mm) reduce the top of atmosphere radiance in the entire TIR spectral range, including the channels used for the SO2 retrieval. The net effect is a significant SO2 overestimation. To take this effect into account a novel ash correction procedure is presented and applied to the retrieval.