AVHRR Automated detection of volcanic clouds.

A new satellite‐based technique has recently been proposed which seems suitable for an automatic detection of volcanic clouds in daytime conditions. In this paper the robustness of such a new approach, in particular in detecting early eruptive clouds, is evaluated, on several eruptive events at Mt Etna, by using five years of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data. The detection scheme is discussed together with its possible extension to night‐time monitoring and the improvements expected by its application to the next generation of satellite sensors (in particular Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI)) with enhanced spectral and temporal resolution. The proposed approach seems to overcome the limitations related to other proposed methods which, in some conditions (very fresh eruptive clouds, cold‐backgrounds, etc.), give false or missed detection and will no longer be applicable to the next generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) due to the planned reduction of their thermal infrared channels until 2010.