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The new Daily Volcanic Activity Report: using daily volcanic event data for eruption forecasting

Sarah Ogburn 1, JoAnna G. Marlow1, Zac Hastings1, Sally Sennert2, Heather Wright1, Ed Venzke3, Benjamin Andrews3, Chris Hight1, Jacob Lowenstern1, Kadie Bennis3, Gari Mayberry4

  • Affiliations: 1USGS/USAID Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, Vancouver WA, USA; ^2 ^USGS/USAID Volcano Disaster Assistance Program and Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA; 3Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA; 4US Geological Survey, Washington DC, USA 

  • Presentation type: Poster

  • Presentation time: Monday 16:30 - 18:30, Room Poster Hall

  • Poster Board Number: 241

  • Programme No: 2.4.25

  • Theme 2 > Session 4

Abstract

The new global Daily Volcanic Activity Report (DVAR) extracts, archives, visualizes, and summarizes multidisciplinary observational and volcano monitoring data from numerous primary sources on a near-daily basis. This collation and distribution of global volcanic activity data, presented in the DVAR as graphical plots and short narratives on the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program (GVP) website, aims to provide timely updates for situational awareness during volcanic unrest and crises and archives this information in a database. The project is a joint effort between the USAID-US Geological Survey (USGS) Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) and the GVP, with support from the US Agency for International Development's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA).  The DVAR supports VDAP's global Eruption Chronology (Echron) database, GVP's Volcanoes of the World (VOTW) database, and the World Organization of Volcano Observatories (WOVOdat) database by recording daily volcanic event data (e.g., explosions, pyroclastic flows, earthquakes, and alert level changes) and properties. Volcanic event chronologies recorded in the DVAR can be used for eruption forecasting in multiple ways. A detailed chronology of unrest and eruptive events at a volcano in crisis gives a holistic view of all activity to date for interdisciplinary discussions, visualizations, and forecasts of potential outcomes. Global chronology information, obtained from the DVAR and coupled with other global databases, can provide the data needed for statistical analysis of analog volcanoes, unrest sequences, and eruptions. This presentation introduces the DVAR and explores the uses of daily global data for forecasting, including short-term forecasting and forecasting eruption transitions.