News


2023-11-01

Migration from the Copernicus Open Access Hub to the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem

Since November 1st 2023, the Copernicus Open Access Hub is closed and replaced by the new Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (see here). This change has multiple consequences, including on the products search API, the products metadata, as well as the products size (see here). The SNAP toolboxes are in turn also suffering several issues adapting to this change (see here). MOUNTS is currently adapting to this migration: expect delays in the data availability and emailing alerts.

2023-04-11

Improved visualisation of SAR/INSAR products in radar geometry

Unlike geocoded images which are displayed with respect to cardinal directions, images in radar geometry are displayed with respect to the sensor itself, i.e. along the satellite motion direction ("azimuth", image y-axis), and along the radar look direction ("range", image x-axis). Although such imaging geometry is subject to geometric distortions (i.e., slopes facing towards the radar will appear bright and compressed, and slopes facing away will appear dark and stretched), these images can be very useful, and used to recover quantitative measurements of the surface topography (Valade et al. 2023, Nature Comm.). In order to ease their visual interpretation in MOUNTS, both the flight and look directions of the radar sensor have been added to the images displayed in radar geometry (i.e., SAR intensity and INSAR interferogram+coherence).

2022-11-28

New monitored volcano: Mauna Loa (Hawaii), following activity onset. The additional webpage "Mauna Loa 30km" was added for analysis on larger spatial extent.

2022-10-25

New monitored volcano: Cotopaxi (Ecuador), following increase in activity and request from IGEPN.

2022-06-05

New monitored volcano: Bulusan (Philippines), following eruption onset.

2022-04-06

New monitored volcanoes: Ulawun and Kadovar (Papua New Guinea), following a request from local volcano observatories.

2022-04-05

New monitored volcano: Puracé (Colombia), in reaction to a request from the SGC (Servicio Geológico Colombiano) following an increase in seismic and volcanic activity.

2022-03-28

New monitored volcano: São Jorge (Portugal, Azores) in reaction to the onset of an earthquake swarm on the island of São Jorge. The additional "São Jorge 50km" webpage is added to have larger scale images analyzing the entire island.

2022-01-16

New monitored volcano: Hunga Tonga-Hunga (Tonga).

2022-01-08

New monitored volcano: Wolf (Ecuador) following eruption onset. The additional "Wolf 20km" webpage was added, to have larger scale images centered on this new eruptive activity. Update 2022-05-10: "Wolf 20km" was paused following the IGEPN communication reporting the end of eruption.

2021-10-21

Improved visualisation of INSAR products

Images derived from the D-InSAR analysis (interferograms and coherence map) have been been improved by adding a number of elements to ease their interpretation: topography, flight and look directions, and colobar. Many thanks to Aurélien Augier for his "fusion" tip and his feedbacks!

2021-10-16

New monitored volcano: Vulcano (Italy) following signs of unrest.

2021-09-19

New monitored volcano: La Palma (Spain, Canary Islands) following eruption onset.

2021-08-31

Improved SO2 mass estimation accuracy

Thanks to Robin Campion (UNAM), the pixel sizes used to compute SO2 mass (MSO2) is now based on the pixel bounds provided in the L2 products, thereby allowing to accurately take into account the position of the gas plume within the swath. With respect to the method described in Valade et al. (2019), this results in MSO2 values with a tighter distribution, but overall slightly higher values. The Vertical Column Density (VCD) used to compute the MSO2 remains the Planet Boundary Layer (PBL) for most volcanoes (we remind that this can result in large MSO2 overestimations, especially when the gas plume is above the atmospheric clouds).

These upgrades are now operational, and re-processing of the archive dataset is now finished.

2021-aug

New monitored volcanoes: Lopevi (Vanuatu), San Cristóbal (Nicaragua).

2021-07-12

Sentinel-5P processing recovered

Since 2021-06-15, the download of Sentinel-5P products and the subsequent computation of SO2 masses has been partly interrupted. The problem has now been overcome, and the download/processing is now recovered.

2021-05-22

Added new target "Nyiragongo 20km" (20x20km crop around the crater), in addition to the existing target "Nyiragongo" (having a 10x10km region of interest around the crater) in response to the 2021-05-22 eruption onset.

Target removed on 2021-09-01.

2021-03-20

New monitored volcano: Krýsuvík (Fagradalsfjall), Iceland.

2021-01-16

Updated DEM for SAR & D-INSAR analysis at Merapi volcano

The SAR & D-INSAR analysis of Sentinel-1 products at Merapi Volcano (Indonesia) is now using a Digital Elevation Model provided by the GFZ Potsdam, generated for the Merapi summit by combining terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) photogrammetry data acquired in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The GFZ is warmly thanked for making this dataset available (link).

Darmawan, Herlan; Walter, Thomas; Richter, Nicole; Nikkoo, Mehdi (2017): High resolution Digital Elevation Model of Merapi summit in 2015 generated by UAVs and TLS. V. 2015. GFZ Data Services. https://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.2.1.2017.003

The DEM was merged and resampled for usage into MOUNTS. Sentinel-1 SAR & INSAR products were reprocessed with the updated DEM products, since 2020-10-01.

2021-01-13

Updated DEM for SAR & D-INSAR analysis at Kīlauea volcano

The SAR & D-INSAR analysis of Sentinel-1 products at Kīlauea Volcano (Hawaiʻi) is now using a Digital Elevation Model provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, based on airborne lidar surveys carried in July 2019. This updated DEM incorporates the topographic changes which accompanied the 2018 flank eruption and subsequent caldera collapse. The USGS is warmly thanked for making this dataset available (link).

Mosbrucker, A.R., Zoeller, M.H., and Ramsey, D.W., 2020, Digital elevation model of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi, based on July 2019 airborne lidar surveys: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9F1ZU8O.

The DEM was merged and resampled for usage into MOUNTS. Sentinel-1 SAR & INSAR products were reprocessed with the updated DEM products, since 2019-08-01 for orbit 87, since 2020-11-01 for orbit 124.

2020-12-29

New monitored volcano: Soufrière St. Vincent (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), following new eruptive activity.

Soufrière Hills (Monserrat) volcano added to the monitoring list few days afterwards.

2020-12-07

Sentinel-1 D-INSAR products displayed in SAR geometry

Sentinel-1 interferogram and coherence maps are now also displayed in the SAR imaging geometry, for the "zoomed" 2x2km crop around the crater. (See 2020-11-27 news for further explanation).

2020-11-27

Sentinel-1 intensity images displayed in SAR geometry

Sentinel-1 intensity images are now also displayed in the SAR imaging geometry: the image's y-axis is denoted as "azimuth" and corresponds to the radar flight direction, whereas the image's x-axis is the "slant range" and corresponds to the radar line-of-sight direction. The antenna is right-looking, meaning that the radar is looking from the left-side of the image. The pixel spacing is 2.3 x 14.1 m in range and azimuth respectively (SLC IW products, ESA).

These intensity images in SAR geometry are made available only for the "zoomed" 2x2km crop around the crater. Because the during the geocoding process (i.e., Range Doppler Terrain Correction) the SAR images suffer distorsions, visualizing the images in the original SAR geometry can prove useful to detect small changes in the scene.

The "timeseries", "imgplayer" and "imgslider" webpages have been updated to visualize these images.

2020-11-26

New monitored volcano: Lewotolo volcano (Indonesia), following the communication from GVP on its ongoing unrest.

2020-11-01

Monitoring priorities

Monitoring priorities have been introduced, whereby each volcano is assigned a "priority level" defining the amount of downloaded/processed data:

- high: all available S1 + S2 + S5P products

- medium: all available S2 + S5P products & selected S1 products (e.g., specific orbit, rate, etc.)

- low: selected S1 + S2 + S5P products (e.g., specific orbit, rate, etc.)

- pause: download/process of S1 + S2 + S5P products are paused, and reactivated in case of increased eruptive activity

The prioriy level assigned to each volcano can be visualized from the volcano webpage (in the gray information section on the top-left). Hovering on the level allows the user to visualize details on which data is downloaded/processed.

The priority levels will be subject to modifications in case of variations of the volcano's eruptive activity. Such modifications can result from internal data evaluation (MOUNTS), or communication with external sources (e.g., volcano observatories, MIROVA, HOTVOLC, GVP, VAAC, etc.).

2020-11-01

New monitored volcanoes (reaching >50 monitored volcanoes worldwide)

America:

- Guatemala: Santa María

- Costa Rica: Poás, Turrialba, Rincón de la Vieja

- El Salvador: San Miguel

- Colombia: Nevado del Huila

- Colombia-Ecuador: Chiles-Cerro Negro

- Ecuador: Reventador

- Chile: Láscar, Planchón-Peteroa, Nevados de Chillán

- Argentina-Chile: Copahue

Asia:

- India: Barren Island

- Indonesia: Sinabung, Kerinci, Merapi, Semeru, Ijen, Raung, Dukono

- Japan: Asosan

- Russia: Sheveluch

Oceania:

- Papua New Guinea: Manam, Bagana, Langila

- Vanuatu: Aoba, Yasur

(Products are being downloaded from now onwards; older data is progressively being downloaded/processed.)

2020-10-05

Color-coded scales and associated automatic email alerts

Color-codes are now assigned to the detected 'SO2 mass', 'thermal anomalies', and 'deformation std.dev', and are reflected in the home-page table. Automatic email alerts are sent to specified users, which are customized based on the desired alert-type, alert-level, and volcano of interest. Contact valade@igeofisica.unam.mx to get more information and/or register.

2020-09-09

Improved SO2 detection

(1) The filters used to detect SO2 contaminated pixels (concentration >1 DU + morphological filter, Valade et al. 2019) have been replaced by the L2-product flag "sulfurdioxide_detection_flag" developed by DLR-IMF (ref). This flag identifies pixels with a concentration >0.35 DU, and takes into account whether neighboring pixels also fulfill this criterion in order to minimize false-positive detections. This now allows MOUNTS to detect smaller SO2 plumes.

(2) The SO2 mass detected in a 500x500 km box centered on the volcano is now attributed to the volcano only if SO2 is also detected in a 100x100 box around the volcano. This now allows MOUNTS to minimize false-detections due to SO2 emissions by neighboring volcanoes.

These upgrades are now operational, and re-processing of the archive dataset is ongoing.

2020-08-05

New monitored volcano: Telica (Nicaragua).

2020-05-28

New monitored volcano: Ubinas (Peru).

2020-05-06

Sentinel-2 images are now also displayed as true color images (visible bands B4-B3-B2, 10m resolution), with hot pixels enhanced using SWIR infrared bands B12-B11-B8A (20m resolution).

2020-05-06

New feature in timeseries webpage: the various image types are now easily changeable using radio-buttons displayed on the left side of the image (e.g., Sentinel-2 image types: 'visible + infrared', 'infrared', 'infrared + detection'). These can also be changed in the "page options" menu.

2020-04-06

New timeseries webpage: the page has been restructured to display parameters derived from the analysis of Sentinel-1 (deformation, coherence, intensity), Sentinel-2 (hotspots) and Sentinel-5P (SO2) products in distinct subplots, together with images associated to each timeseries. The old page version is still accessible from the "page options" menu, following the link "collapsed timeseries".

2020-04-01

New products available: images are now also plotted on a "zoomed" crop around the volcano summit (2x2 km for Sentinel-1 & 2 images, 100x100 km for Sentinel-5P images).

2020-03-01

New monitored volcanoes: Nevado del Ruiz (Colombia), Villarrica (Chile), Masaya & Momotombo (Nicaragua), Ibu (Indonesia), Sakurajima (Japan).

2020-02-10

Sentinel-1 SAR intensity images are now also displayed after speckle-filtering (CNN-based speckle filter: Davis et al. 2020, IGARSS).

2020-01-28

New monitored volcano: Michoacan-Guanajuato volcanic field (Mexico), in response to the seismic crisis initiated early January 2020. Real-time monitoring ended on 2020-03-06 following a significant decrease in seismic activity.

2020-01-17

New monitored volcano: Taal (Philippines), in response to the eruptive crisis started early January 2020.