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Measuring topographic change due to volcanic eruptions using multistatic SAR satellites.

^^ Juliet Biggs1^^, Odysseas Pappas1, Rebecca Edwards1, Julia Kubanek2 and Michael Poland3,

  • Affiliations: 1 COMET, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK; 2 Earth and Mission Science Division (EOP-SMS), European Space Agency; Noorwijk, The Netherlands; 3 Cascades Volcano Observatory, USGS, USA.

  • Presentation type: Poster

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

  • Poster Board Number: 158

  • Programme No: 3.1.50

  • Theme 3 > Session 1

Abstract

Significant changes to the local topography occur as volcanic edifices build up and/or collapse and lava, tephra and other eruptive products are deposited. Monitoring such changes in topography is crucial to risk assessment and the prediction of further eruptive behaviour. Multistatic Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a remote sensing modality particularly suited to this task as it allows for the creation of digital elevation models (DEMs) that can accurately map out three-dimensional changes in the topography, regardless of weather conditions and temporal decorrelation caused by volcanic activity. However, few such missions are however currently operational.TanDEM-X has been used for studying a wide range of volcanic activity, such as basaltic lava flows, the formation and destruction of lava domes and related pyroclastic density currents, and subsurface magma withdrawal and intrusion. However, the temporal resolution and data access are limited.  Harmony is an upcoming ESA mission scheduled for launch in 2029 that will provide multistatic InSAR capabilities for the measurement of stress and deformation across the cryosphere, the oceans and the solid earth, including monitoring of topographic change due to volcanic eruptions. Operating in a constellation with Sentinel-1, Harmony will providing an open-access, dense time-series of surface elevation models at a temporal interval of 12 days. This presentation will review existing measurements of topographic change at volcanoes from the TanDEM-X mission, and then assess the ability of Harmony to measure topographic change in volcanic conditions.