ESSC, University of Reading, 24th January 2008

Geoff Wadge and Duncan Robertson of the AVTIS team co-organised this workshop to bring together the growing community of researchers who use ground-based radar technology for the remote observation of volcanoes and volcanic processes.

Radars have two distinct advantages over traditional methods for observing volcanoes and volcanic activity.  Firstly, they can penetrate cloud and volcanic gas plumes to reveal solid surfaces.  Secondly, they can, potentially, provide types and combinations of measurements that are unobtainable otherwise, for example, rock and ash motion, topographic change and rainfall rate. Instruments demonstrating these capabilities have been developed over the last ten years but have not yet achieved widespread operational use. The community of practitioners in this field is small. The purpose of the workshop was to bring a large fraction of this community together to share the capabilities of their techniques and to discuss future developments.

The presentations made by the workshop attendees will be available shortly for download.

Volcanic ash radar retrieval by ground-based microwave radar
PDF (3.4MB)
F. Marzano, University of Roma, Italy

NEXRAD weather radar observations of the 2006 Augustine volcanic eruption clouds
PDF (2.0MB)
D. Schneider, Alaska Volcano Observatory, USA

Applications of pulsed ground-based Doppler radar to the study and monitoring of volcanoes
PDF (3.3MB) + Movie (1.5MB)
F. Donnadieu, M.Gouhier, J. Fournet-Fayard, C. Hervier, Univ. Blaise Pascale, Clermont Ferrand, France

Mass estimations of volcanic ejecta by inversion of Doppler radar measurements
PDF (1.3MB)
M. Gouhier, F. Donnadieu, Univ. Blaise Pascale, Clermont Ferrand, France

The Hamburg Doppler radar system: a system description and selected results
PDF (3.7MB)
M. Hort, University of Hamburg, Germany

AVTIS: a portable millimetre wave radarometer designed for survey and monitoring of volcanic lava domes
PDF (5.1MB) + Movie1 (5.4MB) + Movie 2 (5.2MB) + Movie3 (1.3MB) + Movie4 (9.0MB) + Movie 5 (3.3MB)
D.G. Macfarlane, G.Wadge, H.Odbert, M.James, H.Pinkerton, D.Robertson
Universities of St Andrews, Reading and Lancaster, UK

Pulsed Doppler radar for measurement of geothermal flow observations
PDF (0.8MB)
P. Brennan, K. Woodbridge, University College London, UK

Monitoring deformations of the Stromboli volcano through ground-based radar interferometry
PDF (13.6MB)
Antonello, G., Casagli, N., Catani, F., Del Ventisette, C., Fortuny-Guasch, J., Guerri, L., Leva, D. and Tarchi, D., JRC, University of Florence, Italy

Discussion of volcanological applications and technical developments of ground-based radar
PDF(0.4MB) + Movie (0.8MB)
Led by G. Wadge, University of Reading and D. Robertson University of St Andrews

If you have any comments about the material here or would like to discuss radar volcanology further, please contact the organisers:-

Prof. Geoff Wadge, University of Reading:   gw at mail dot nerc-essc dot ac dot uk
Dr Duncan Robertson, University of St Andrews:  dar at st-and dot ac dot uk