Synergetic exploitation of meteorological geostationary payloads "SEVIRI" and "JAMI" for quantitative, real-time, global volcano monitoring

The eruptive unrests of active volcanoes are always associated to the emission of molten rocks at temperatures between 900-1500K, and to power releases typically above 10 Watts. Such high-temperature, surface volcanic features present overall moderate size, spanning in width between a few tens of meters (small active lava flows) and several hundred meters (large active lava flows, molten lava lakes, extruding domes of viscous lava). They typically occupy several pixels of infrared channels in decametric resolution payloads (as TM, ETM+, ASTER, HRVIR, HRG and LISS-III, e.g.), appreciable sub-pixel fractions in kilometric resolution payloads (as MODIS, AVHRR and ATSR, e.g.), and very small sub-pixel fractions of low spatial resolution payloads onboard geostationary meteorological platforms, as Imager (onboard GOES West and East), JAMI (Japanese Advanced Meteorological Imager onboard MTSAT-R1) and SEVIRI (Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager, onboard Meteosat Second Generation MSG-1 and -2). Despite the loose spatial resolution, geostationary multispectral payloads present major advantages in Earth observation of volcanoes, in terms of (i) temporal resolution, with information refresh at rates as high as 24 to 96 images daily, (ii) global scale of the observation (Fig.1), and (iii) long term observation worldwide, guaranteed by the continuity of meteorological geostationary satellite programs for at least 10 years on. We present a successful attempt at detecting, measuring and tracking simultaneously a large sample of eruptive activity occurring between 2006-2009 at ten volcanoes in the disk of SEVIRI (Fig. 1.1, located at 0°E) and twelve volcanoes in the disk of JAMI (Fig. 1.2, located at 140°E), differing in location, eruptive style, duration and magnitude of eruptions.