Estimating volcanic eruption column height and growth rate using X-band marine radar at the Sakurajima Volcano

Abstract

We developed a method for estimating the height and growth rate of volcanic eruption columns, at high-temporal resolution, by processing vertical cross-sectional images of areas around the crater obtained with a marine radar tilted on its side. We applied our method to 127 eruptions occurring at Sakurajima (Kagoshima, Japan) from June to December 2019 and successfully estimated the time-series height of the eruption column and its growth rate every 2.5 seconds. In 48 cases, we obtained the maximum height of the eruption column and confirmed that these results were consistent with those estimated using meteorological radar. Although the maximum height estimated with our method tended to be lower than that observed by monitoring cameras, results could be obtained even when observations were difficult due to cloud effects, etc.