̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Emma Liu

New drone technology advances volcanic monitoring

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 19:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��team, involving 20 researchers from seven countries, used long-range drones kitted out with a range of lightweight sensors to study the Manam volcano - one of the most active volcanoes in Papua New Guinea.

Their findings, published in the journal Science Advances, show how combined measurements from the air, earth and space can be used to understand volcanic contributions to the global carbon cycle, key to sustaining life on Earth.

One of the best ways to detect signs of an impending eruption is to ‘breathalyze’ a volcano by taking regular measurements of volcanic gases. Any change in the ratio of sulfur and carbon dioxide released can warn of an impending eruption. But sampling more remote or hazardous volcanoes like Manam is more challenging.

When the volcano last erupted between 2004 and 2006 the entire island was evacuated - crops were destroyed and water supplies contaminated. ̽��ֱ��islanders only started to return five years ago.

Previous studies have shown that Manam is one of the world’s biggest emitters of sulphur dioxide, but nothing was known of its CO₂ output.

Measuring volcanic CO₂ emissions is more challenging because it is already present in high concentrations in the atmosphere. ̽��ֱ��only way to get accurate readings is to take samples from close to active vents.

Collecting samples on Manam would be incredibly risky - not only is the vent flanked by precarious slopes, the volcano is also unmonitored so there would be little warning if an eruption struck.

Using drones equipped with miniaturised gas sensors, spectrometers and sampling devices the team piloted flights right into the plume emerging from Manam’s vent. ̽��ֱ��measurements captured gas composition, temperature and humidity in real-time.

̽��ֱ��project - Aerial-Based Observations of Volcanic Emissions (ABOVE) – saw the first global collaboration between scientists, remote-sensing specialists, engineers and pilots.

Project lead Dr Emma Liu of ̽��ֱ�� College London, who carried out the research while based at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, said: “these aerial measurements are pushing the frontiers of the current state-of-the-art in volcano monitoring - from the existing satellite data we know that Manam is a significant source of volcanic emissions, but that data came with a lot of uncertainty because it was measured at a distance.

“ ̽��ֱ��resources of the in-country volcano monitoring institute are small and the team has an incredible workload, but they really helped us make the links with the community living on Manam island.”

Following the fieldwork, the researchers raised funds to buy computers, solar panels and other technology to enable the local community – who have since put together a disaster preparedness group - to communicate via satellite from the island, and to provide drone operations training to Rabaul Volcanological Observatory staff to assist in their monitoring efforts.

ABOVE was part of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), a global community of scientists on a ten-year quest to understand more about carbon in Earth.

“Volcanic emissions are a critical stage of the Earth’s carbon cycle - the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, and ocean – but CO₂ measurements have so far been limited to a relatively small number of the world’s estimated 500 degassing volcanoes,” said co-author Professor Marie Edmonds, also from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences. “Aerial gas measurements, collected along transects through the plume, together with ground-based and satellite data show that Manam is a major volcanic emission source on a global scale, which ranks fifth in terms of its carbon flux.”

Co-author Professor Alessandro Aiuppa ( ̽��ֱ�� of Palermo) described the findings as ‘a real advance in our field’, adding: “Ten years ago you could have only stared and guessed what Manam’s CO₂ emissions were.

“If you take into account all the carbon released by global volcanism, it’s less than a percent of the total emission budget, which is dominated by human activity. In a few centuries, humans are acting like thousands of volcanoes. If we continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere, it will make monitoring and forecasting eruptions using aerial gas observations even harder.”

“In order to understand the drivers of climate change you need to understand the carbon cycle in the Earth,” said co-author Professor Tobias Fischer from the ̽��ֱ�� of New Mexico. “We wanted to quantify the carbon emission from this very large carbon dioxide emitter. We had very few data in terms of carbon isotope composition, which would identify the source of the carbon and whether it is the mantle, crust or sediment. We wanted to know where that carbon comes from.”

“Drones are changing not only the way we monitor volcanoes – they also help us to understand what causes eruptions, and how carbon moves between the Earth’s interior and atmosphere,” said Edmonds. “If we know how volcanic emissions interacted with the climate in the past, we are closer to understanding controls on our present-day climate and how it may respond to future human-driven impacts.”

ABOVE was funded by Alfred P. Solan Foundation

Reference:
E.J. Liu et al. ‘Aerial strategies advance volcanic gas measurements at inaccessible, strongly degassing volcanoes.’ Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb9103.

Specially-adapted drones, developed by an international team involving scientists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, are transforming how we forecast eruptions by allowing close-range measurements of previously inaccessible and hazardous volcanoes

These aerial measurements are pushing the frontiers of the current state-of-the-art in volcano monitoring

Emma Liu

ABOVE and beyond: new drones developed by UCL collaboration give rare insight into remote volcanoes

Emma Liu

View from Baliau village, Manam

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Above and beyond: measuring volcanic emissions with drones

lw355 — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 12:40:00 +0000

Dr Emma Liu travels to some of the world's most active volcanoes to understand what makes them erupt. Her latest work is helping a Pacific community to monitor the restless mountain they live with.

Drones used to analyse ash clouds from Guatemalan volcano

cjb250 — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 09:30:09 +0000

During a ten-day research trip, the team carried out many proof-of-concept flights at the summits of both Volcán de Fuego and Volcán de Pacaya in Guatemala. Using lightweight modern sensors they measured temperature, humidity and thermal data within the volcanic clouds and took images of multiple eruptions in real-time.

This is one of the first times that bespoke fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used at a volcano such as Fuego, where the lack of close access to the summit vent has prevented robust gas measurements. Funding from the Cabot Institute has helped the team to develop technologies to enable this capability. ̽��ֱ��UAVs were successfully flown at distances of up to 8 km away, and at a height of over 3 km above the launch site.

̽��ֱ��group plan to return to Guatemala later in the year with a wider range of sensors including a gas analyser, a four-stage filter pack; carbon stubs for ash sampling; thermal and visual cameras, and atmospheric sensors.

Dr Emma Liu, a volcanologist from the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge, said: “Drones offer an invaluable solution to the challenges of in-situ sampling and routine monitoring of volcanic emissions, particularly those where the near-vent region is prohibitively hazardous or inaccessible.

“These sensors not only help to understand emissions from volcanoes, they could also be used in the future to help alert local communities of impending eruptions – particularly if the flights can be automated.”

Dr Kieran Wood, Senior Research Associate in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Bristol, added: “Even during this initial campaign we were able to meet significant science and engineering targets. For example, multiple imaging flights over several days captured the rapidly changing topography of Fuego’s summit. These showed that the volcano was erupting from not just one, but two active summit vents.”

Taking time out from their sample flights, the research group also used their aircraft to map the topology of a barranca and the volcanic deposits within it. These deposits were formed by a recent pyroclastic flow, a fast-moving cloud of superheated ash and gas, which travelled down the barranca from Fuego. ̽��ֱ��data captured will assist in modelling flow pathways and the potential impact of future volcanic eruptions on nearby settlements.

Dr Matt Watson, Reader in Natural Hazards in the School of Earth Sciences at Bristol, said: “This is exciting initial research for future investigations, and would not be possible without a very close collaboration between volcanology and engineering.”

Adapted from a press release by the ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol.

A team of volcanologists and engineers from the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol has collected measurements from directly within volcanic clouds, together with visual and thermal images of inaccessible volcano peaks.

Drones help scientists study Guatemalan volcanoes

Volcán de Fuego

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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