THE MODVOLC ALGORITHM HAS BEEN IN OPERATION SINCE FEBRUARY 2000 INITIALLY USING MODIS TERRA DATA BUT IN 2002 ADDING MODIS AQUA DATA. THE ALGORITHM SCANS EACH SQUARE KM OF EARTH'S SURFACE AND ANALYZES THE DETECTED SPECTRAL RADIANCE IN FIVE MWIR AND LWIR CHANNELS FOR EVIDENCE OF THE THERMAL SIGNATURE OF ERUPTING VOLCANOES. THE RESULTS (UNIX TIME OF DETECTION LAT/ION EMITTED SPECTRAL RADIANCE SUN-SENSOR GEOMETRY) ARE MADE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC AS ASCII TEXT FILES AND A GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE AT HTTP://MODIS.HIGP.HAWAII.EDU/NEW. SINCE 2000 THE SYSTEM HAS DETECTED VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS AT 112 DIFFERENT VOLCANOES ACROSS THE GLOBE. IT HAS (AND CONTINUES TO PROVIDE) THE MOST COMPLETE SPACE-BASED RECORD OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS AVAILABLE TO THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY PROVIDING A NEAR 20 YEAR ARCHIVE OF QUANTITATIVE DATA ABOUT GLOBAL VOLCANISM.

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators