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International Journal of Remote Sensing

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Satellite observations of environmental changes from the Tonga volcano eruption in the southern tropical Pacific
Wei Shi
a a b

& Menghua Wang

NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Center for Satellite Applications and Research, E/RA3, Camp Springs, MD, 20746, USA
b

CIRA at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

Available online: 28 Jul 2011

To cite this article: Wei Shi & Menghua Wang (2011): Satellite observations of environmental changes from the Tonga volcano eruption in the southern tropical Pacific, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 32:20, 5785-5796 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2010.507679

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International Journal of Remote Sensing Vol. 32, No. 20, 20 October 2011, 57855796

Satellite observations of environmental changes from the Tonga volcano eruption in the southern tropical Pacic
WEI SHI and MENGHUA WANG NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Center for Satellite Applications and Research, E/RA3, Camp Springs, MD 20746, USA CIRA at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
(Received 6 November 2009; in nal form 17 June 2010)

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Satellite measurements from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Aqua were used to study changes of the ocean and atmosphere following the eruption of a submarine volcano in March 2009 in the southern tropical Pacic. Signicant increase of water turbidity was observed in an area of 368 km2 near the location of the eruption due to the deposition of volcanic ash. In the ocean region close to the volcanic eruption, the diffuse attenuation coefcient at a wavelength of 490 nm, K d (490), increased from 0.025 to 0.16 m1 before and after the volcanic eruption. Within two weeks of the event, the coverage of the ash-laden waters decreased to 30 km2 , and after four weeks the satellite-measured marine environment parameters returned back to the pre-eruption condition. The normalized water-leaving reectance spectra, derived from the combined near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) atmospheric correction algorithm for the ash-laden water, show some unique optical features, different from those of the sediment-dominated turbid waters, river plume waters or other productive waters. No signicant sea surface temperature (SST) change was detected from satellite measurements near the eruption site. Volcanic ash plumes in the atmosphere were observed moving north-eastward following the ocean winds on 18 March 2009. The aerosol optical thickness increased from 0.06 on the previous day to 0.25 at a location 60 km north-east of the volcanic eruption site.

1.

Introduction

The southern tropical Pacic is featured with the Tonga-Kermadec arc (Billen et al. 2003), where the Pacic Plate subducts beneath the Australian Plate. It is a part of the Pacic Ring of Fire and stretches from New Zealand to Samoa with a length of 2500 km. The plate tectonics of crustal plates make this region extremely seismically active and result in a large number of earthquakes and volcano eruptions, as well as hydrothermal vents (Ronde et al. 2001). There are over 100 submarine volcanoes along the arc, and frequent volcanic activities and eruptions are observed in this region. Volcanic eruptions not only damage property and pose dangers to air travel, but also create short- and long-term environmental problems. Explosive volcanic eruptions release large amount of gases such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, sulphur

*Corresponding author. Email: Menghua.Wang@noaa.gov

International Journal of Remote Sensing ISSN 0143-1161 print/ISSN 1366-5901 online 2011 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2010.507679

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dioxide, hydrogen dioxide and so on into the atmosphere, and they can lead to air pollution and cause acid rain. In addition, the emission of gases from volcanic eruptions can also deplete the stratospheric ozone layer, increase the atmospheres albedo, modify Earths radiation balance and cause climate anomalies for a couple of years. As an example, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 ejected more than 20 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere (Pasteris 1996) and resulted in a global layer of sulphuric acid, a decrease of 0.5 K global temperature (Soden et al. 2002) and a temporary increase of ozone depletion. The volcanic ash in the atmosphere, particularly in the upper troposphere and stratosphere, can increase reected solar radiation and also damage aircraft engines. The deposition of volcanic ash can accumulate signicantly and lead to the destruction of the local ecosystem. For an oceanic volcanic eruption, the ash can deteriorate the marine ecosystem, affect the water column and benthic geochemical and biological processes and destroy the habitat of the coral reef. In this article, we describe the environmental changes observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Aqua following the eruption of a volcano near Tonga in the southern Pacic in March 2009. The diffuse attenuation coefcient at the wavelength of 490 nm (Mueller 2000, Lee et al. 2005, Morel et al. 2007, Wang et al. 2009a), K d (490), is used as an indicator for the water turbidity near the volcanic eruption location, and its changes before, during and after the volcanic eruption are evaluated. Other environmental variables such as sea surface temperature (SST) and aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at the wavelength of 869 nm, a (869), are also assessed in order to evaluate the effects of the volcanic eruption on both the ocean and the atmosphere. In addition, ocean optical properties corresponding to the marine ecosystem changes before, during and after the volcanic eruption are studied. The combined near-infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) atmospheric correction algorithm (Wang and Shi 2005, 2007, Wang 2007), which has been used to derive improved ocean colour products in the turbid coastal and inland waters (Wang et al. 2007, 2009b), is used to retrieve the normalized water-leaving reectance spectra (Morel and Gentili 1991, Gordon and Wang 1994, Gordon 2005, Wang 2006), w N (), from the blue to the NIR bands during pre-eruption, eruption and post-eruption periods. The environmental implications and the comparison with other climate-driven ocean environment changes are also discussed. 2. Eruption of submarine volcano near Tonga in March 2009 The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai submarine volcano (20.57 S and 175.38 W) lies approximately 63 km north of the main island of Tonga (gure 1). It is part of the seismically active Tonga-Kermadec Islands volcanic arc and lies between Hunga Tonga Island and Hunga Haapai Island. Historically, the submarine volcano has erupted three times in 1912, 1937 and 1988 with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) (Newhall and Self 1982) <2, according to the Global Volcano Program of the Smithsonian Institution (http://www.volcano.si.edu/). According to the Smithsonian/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report 18 March 24 March 2009 (http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/), the initial eruption of this volcano in 2009 occurred from two vents on 16 and 17 March. On 18 and 19 March, a series of eruptions sent ash to an altitude of 45.2 km and plumes drifted north-east (NE) based on the information from Tonga Meteorological Services, pilot observations and the Wellington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center. On 20 March, steam plumes

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U.S.A China

Volcano Location (Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai)

Pacific Ocean

Australia

Nuku'alofa Tonga

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Figure 1. Geolocation map of the Tonga volcanic eruption.

rose to an altitude of 1.8 km and widespread haze was reported in areas 255 km NE of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai, and by 21 March an eruption plume rose to an altitude of 0.8 km. A post-eruption survey by Tonga geologists showed that lava and ash came from two vents: one located on Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai Island and the other about 100 m offshore. The eruption had signicant impacts on Hunga Haapai Island, covering it in black ash and destroying vegetation and fauna on Hunga Tonga and Hunga Haapai Islands. 3. Observation of marine environmental changes following the volcanic eruption To study the environmental changes of the ocean following the volcanic eruptions, MODIS-Aqua ocean colour products were generated using the NIRSWIR combined atmospheric correction algorithm (Wang 2007, Wang and Shi 2007, Wang et al. 2009b). Before and after the Tonga volcanic eruption, MODIS-Aqua captured the ocean conditions and provided a clear picture of the ocean turbidity, SST and changes of other water optical properties. Figure 2(a)(d) shows the ocean diffuse attenuation coefcient at a wavelength of 490 nm, K d (490), during the periods of pre-eruption, and during two weeks and four weeks post-eruption. K d (490) data were derived using the new K d (490) algorithm that is applicable to coastal turbid waters (Wang et al. 2009a). During the period between 2 and 15 March, the turbidity of the ocean over the entire region is low, with K d (490) values within 0.020.03 m1 (gure 2(a)). It is noted that the high K d (490) feature near Tonga Island and in the north upper region is due to the bottom effect of shallow waters (depth 23 m). In fact, at the eruption location, there was no observed K d (490) anomaly in comparison with the neighbouring water regions. During the eruption period between 16 and 22 March, signicantly elevated K d (490) can be found in the region near the eruption site (gure 2(b)). K d (490) values increased nearly sevenfold to 0.16 m1 due to the deposition of volcanic ashes. The ash-laden water covers an area of 368 km2 with K d (490) > 0.05 m1 . For the other regions, the turbidity of the water is similar to the pre-eruption condition. Figure 2(c) shows the

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215 March
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Sea Surface Temperature (SST) (C) Diffuse Attenuation Coefficient Kd(490) (m1) nLw(443) & nLw(551) (mW cm2 m1 sr1) nLw(667) (mW cm2 m1 sr1)

Figure 2. Marine environmental changes as represented with the MODIS-Aqua derived ocean colour product composite images for K d (490) (panels (a)(d)), nLw (443) (panels (e)(h)), nLw (551) (panels (i)(l)) and nLw (667) (panels (m)(p)), as well as SST data (panels (q)(t)). These MODIS-Aqua products are acquired for the periods (in 2009) of 215 March (rst column), 1622 March (second column), 23 March6 April (third column) and 720 April (fourth column). The location of a pseudo-station and a transect line are shown in panel (j) for further data analyses. Note that the white regions are identied as clouds.

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K d (490) map during the period between 23 March and 6 April. Even though the high K d (490) caused by the volcanic-ash deposition can still be discerned, the coverage of the ash-laden waters reduced considerably to 30 km2 and the highest K d (490) value decreased to 0.1 m1 . Four weeks after the volcanic eruption, the ash-laden turbid waters near the eruption site disappeared in the K d (490) imagery (gure 2(d)). Figure 2(e)(h), (i)(l) and (m)(p) shows the maps of normalized water-leaving radiance nLw () (Morel and Gentili 1991, Gordon and Wang 1994, Gordon 2005, Wang 2006) at wavelengths of 443, 551 and 667 nm for the period before, during and after the volcanic eruption. The ocean region is generally characterized as typical of oligotrophic waters with nLw (443), nLw (551) and nLw (667) of 2.0, 0.3 and 0.03 mW cm2 m1 sr1 , respectively. Corresponding to the K d (490) observations in gure 2(a)(d), enhanced nLw () at wavelengths of 443, 551 and 667 nm (nLw (443), nLw (551) and nLw (667)) are observed in the ash-laden turbid waters near the submarine volcano during the eruption period between 16 and 22 March (gure 2(f ), (j) and (n)). In the following two weeks, the enhancements of nLw (443), nLw (551) and nLw (667) were still observable, but with signicantly reduced coverage (gure 2(g), (k) and (o)). Again, four weeks after the volcanic eruption, values of nLw (443), nLw (551) and nLw (667) were back to the pre-eruption conditions. Figure 2(q)(t) shows the MODIS-Aqua SST imageries in the different periods before, during and after the volcanic eruption. In contrast to MODIS-Aqua K d (490) and nLw () measurements, some spatial variability of SST can be observed synoptically during the period between early March and early April with the highest SST 30 C and lowest 15 C. Conversely, there is no pronounced SST change observed during and after the volcanic eruption in the region near the eruption site. It is noted that, in reality, SST may be altered close to the eruption site, but with the spatial scale of the MODIS imagery (1 km), this might not be discernible in the satellite imagery. During the period between 16 and 22 March, SST near the Tonga volcano was 27 C, and this is similar to the other areas, suggesting that the thermal disturbance caused by the submarine volcanic eruption might be minimal and could not be detected by MODIS SST measurements. To examine the spatial variation of the water turbidity near the eruption location, a transect line across the ash-laden waters is dened at 20.56 S, as shown in gure 2(j). Figure 3(a) shows the K d (490) variation along the transect line in different phases relating to the eruption. Before the eruption, K d (490) was almost uniform spatially with K d (490) 0.025 m1 . Following the volcanic eruption, the K d (490) value nearby the eruption site was signicantly increased. K d (490) reached 0.16 m1 from previous 0.023 m1 . The distance of the elevated K d (490) is approximately 40 km along the transect line. In the following two weeks, a diminished volcanic ash plume in the water was observed in both the coverage and its magnitude with the length of 10 km and K d (490) value was <0.1 m1 . During the period between 7 and 20 April, the ocean was almost back to the pre-eruption condition. Near to the eruption site, Kd (490) dropped even further to 0.04 m1 and the ash plume was conned within a distance of 34 km along the transect line. To quantify further the water optical changes in different phases, the MODISderived normalized water-leaving reectance spectra, w N (), from 412 to 859 nm are used. Figure 3(b) shows the evolution of w N () spectra within a box 8 km 8 km at the location specied in gure 2(j). One optical feature of the ash-laden plume is the increase of w N () in the entire visible wavelength with highest value occurring at 488 nm. As an example, the w N () value at 488 nm more than tripled from 2% before

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0 0 10 20 30 40 Distance (km) 8 (b) 6 Pre-eruption (215 March) During eruption (1623 March) Post-eruption (12 weeks) Post-eruption (34 weeks) Normalized water-leaving reflectance spectra 4 Location: (20.58S, 175.39W) 50 60 70 80

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Figure 3. (a) Variation of the diffuse attenuation coefcient at 490 nm (K d (490)) along a transect line between 20.56 S,175.93 W and 20.56 S, 175.01 W, as shown in gure 2(j), and (b) MODIS-Aqua derived normalized water-leaving reectance w N () for the different phases before and after the volcanic eruption in an area 8 km 8 km centred at a location of 20.58 S, and 175.39 W, as marked in gure 2(j).

the eruption to 6% after the eruption. Signicant enhancement of w N () can also be observed in the green and red wavelengths, that is, the reectance increased from 0.06% to 1% in the red band at 667 nm. In the blue wavelength, the ash-caused w N () enhancement can also be observed. There are also noticeable w N () contributions in the NIR bands (748 and 859 nm) with values of 0.25% and 0.19%, respectively.

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The ocean radiance spectra signatures in all four phases reect well the changes as observed synoptically and shown in gure 2. In the period between 23 March and 6 April, w N () spectra dropped signicantly in the visible from the eruption period, but it is still remarkably higher than that during the pre-eruption period. Four weeks after the eruption, w N () spectra dropped even further and became almost identical to the spectra before the volcano erupted. This suggests that at that time the ocean environment nearly restored back to pre-eruption conditions. 4. Spectral reectance features of volcanic ash waters Different from other water types, such as sediment-dominated, river plume and productive waters, the ash-laden waters following the volcano eruption show unique optical characteristics. Figure 4 compares results of the MODIS-Aqua derived normalized water-leaving reectance spectra, w N (), for various water types using the SWIR-based atmospheric correction algorithm. In gure 4, w N () spectra data include cases of: (1) clear (oligotrophic) waters from the southern Pacic at a location of 20.03 S, 175.45 W) (gure 2(j)); (2) volcanic ash waters (gure 2(j)); (3) coastal productive waters from the Chesapeake Bay on 5 April 2004 at a location of (37.54 N, 76.11 W) (Wang and Shi 2007); (4) sediment-dominated waters from the Outer Banks on 5 April 2004 at a location of (35.29 N, 75.77 W) (Wang and Shi 2007); and (5) the Mississippi River plume on 12 March 2008 at a location of (28.88 N, 89.26 W) (Shi and Wang 2009).

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8 Normalized water-leaving reflectance spectra 6

Clear water Volcano ash water Productive water Sediment water River plume water

wN () (%)

0 400 500 600 700 800 900 Wavelength (nm)

Figure 4. Comparison of the MODIS-Aqua derived normalized water-leaving reectance spectra, w N (), for various water types using the SWIR-based atmospheric correction algorithm. The w N () spectra data include: (1) clear (oligotrophic) waters from the southern Pacic at a location of 20.03 S, 175.45 W (gure 2(j)); (2) volcanic ash waters (gure 2(j)); (3) coastal productive waters from the Chesapeake Bay on 5 April 2004 at a location of 37.54 N, 76.11 W; (4) sediment-dominated waters from the Outer Banks on 5 April 2004 at a location of 35.29 N, 75.77 W; and (5) the Mississippi River plume on 12 March 2008 at a location of 28.88 N, 89.26 W.

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The w N () spectrum (from 412 to 859 nm) for the ash-laden waters is relatively at in the visible from blue to green wavelengths, compared with other water types. In particular, different from the sediment-dominated, river plume and productive waters (e.g. waters with high phytoplankton concentration), ash-laden waters show enhanced w N () > 4% in the blue wavelengths, while it is usually <2% for the other water types at the blue except for the oligotrophic water. On the other hand, w N () spectra peak at the green-red bands for river plume and the Chesapeake Bay waters, as well as for the sediment-dominated waters, while w N () spectra for the volcanic ash waters decrease steadily from the wavelength of 488 nm. However, w N () spectra for the volcanic ash waters are still signicantly higher at the green and red wavelengths than those with oligotrophic waters (gure 4). Results in gure 4 show that, for volcanic ash and oligotrophic waters, w N () values at the wavelength of 555 nm are 3.4% and 0.2%, respectively. In addition, for volcanic ash waters, w N () values at the NIR bands are comparable to productive waters in the Chesapeake Bay, while these NIR contributions are considerably less than those of waters from the Outer Banks and Mississippi River plume. 5. Volcanic ash plumes in the atmosphere Since multiple gases and volcanic ashes were ejected into the atmosphere during the eruption, it is useful to assess the effect and their duration in the atmosphere compared to the ash plume in the ocean, which lasted weeks after the eruption. Unlike the ocean ash plume that can last for a couple of weeks, the ash aerosol plumes in atmosphere from the volcanic eruption are transient. Figure 5(a) shows the true-colour image that MODIS-Aqua captured after intense eruptions on 17 and 18 March 2009. The volcanic ash plume in the atmosphere can be observed following south-west (SW) winds of 2.55 m s 1 as observed from the Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite ocean surface wind measurements (http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/). To verify that the observed plumes in gure 5(a) are indeed ash aerosols and not cirrus clouds, MODIS radiance measurements at the wavelength of 1375 nm have been analysed and conrmed for the case (Gao and Kaufman 1996). In gure 5(d), the AOT at 869 nm, a (869), as derived from MODIS-Aqua on 18 March, was signicantly increased in the regions corresponding to the aerosol plume in gure 5(a) compared with that of the previous day (gure 5(c)). Different from the mesoscale K d (490) pattern in gure 2(b), no similar consistent pattern of enhanced a (869) can be identied near the eruption site. This indicates that, in this case, the effect of the volcanic eruption on the atmosphere in the eruption region is short-lived and the aerosol plumes moved out quickly following the SW winds (or deposited into the oceans). To quantify further the eruption-caused ash plume, a transect line across the ash aerosol plumes, as shown in gure 5(d), is dened. Figure 5(b) shows the AOT values along the transect line on 17 March (gure 5(c)) compared with those on 18 March (gure 5(d)). On 17 March, a (869) was relatively at along the transect line with a (869) < 0.08. This shows that the atmosphere is quite clear and uniform, and there were no volcanic ashes in the atmosphere at that time. On 18 March, however, a (869) along the transect line increased signicantly. The peaks and troughs of a (869) reect well the spatial variability of the ash aerosol plumes, as shown in the MODIS truecolour image (gure 5(a)). At a location of 20.28 S, 175.04 W), about 44 km from the start of the transect line, the a (869) value reached nearly 0.25 compared with a a (869) value of 0.06 at the same location one day before (17 March). The mean

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Figure 5. Variation of the volcanic ash plumes in the atmosphere for (a) MODIS true-colour image on 18 March after major volcanic eruptions on 17 and 18 March, (b) aerosol optical thickness at 869 nm a (869) along a transect line between 20.10 S, 175.41 W and 20.36 S, 174.86 W on 17 and 18 March, as marked in panel (d), (c) MODIS-derived a (869) imagery on 17 March, and (d) MODIS-derived a (869) imagery on 18 March. Note that the white regions in panels (c) and (d) are identied as clouds.

values of a (869) for the transect line were 0.078 and 0.130 on 17 and 18 March 2009, respectively. 6. Summary In this study, we used MODIS-Aqua observations to assess the environmental impacts of the Tonga volcanic eruption in 2009 and demonstrated that satellite remote-sensing

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data can be used as an effective and efcient tool to monitor and assess the environmental changes synoptically and in near real time following a volcano eruption. It should be noted that as this volcano event is more or less moderate compared with other very signicant eruptions, the value of this study relies mainly on methodologies. The approach and methodologies used in this study (with multiple satellite data) can be applied to future large events. With the retrieval of the water diffuse attenuation coefcient and normalized water-leaving reectance spectra, we show that 368 km2 ocean coverage near the volcanic eruption was signicantly affected by the deposition of the volcanic ashes. The enhanced ocean turbidity lasted one week and gradually alleviated. The satellitemeasured coverage decreased to 30 km2 after two weeks and was almost back to normal (pre-eruption) in four weeks. On the other hand, there was no signicant SST change from satellite measurements following the eruption. In the atmosphere, the impact of the volcanic eruption is transient and volcanic ash aerosol plume was observed north-east of the eruption site. This is attributed to the SW winds during the eruption period. Satellite observation of the ash aerosol plume movement is consistent with report of signicant haze at Vavau, 255 km north-east of the eruption site. The NIRSWIR atmospheric correction algorithm has been used to derive the normalized water-leaving reectance spectra, w N (), for characterizing the optical feature and variation of the ash-laden plume in the water. The ash-plume water has a unique spectral feature, which is different from the turbid waters dominated by sediment resuspension (Shi and Wang 2008) or river plume (Shi and Wang 2009) in the coastal or inland waters. In particular, for the ash-plume waters, the highest w N () occurs at the wavelength of 488 nm in the visible, different from the turbid waters that normally peak in the green or red band. In the blue wavelengths, however, w N () values at 412 and 443 nm are both elevated for the volcano-ash waters, which is also different from both productive waters and turbid waters. Volcanic ash aerosols in the atmosphere can be detected with satellite observations (Wright et al. 2002). In this study, satellite detected the volcanic ash plume in the atmosphere north-east of the eruption site with elevated AOT. However, the magnitude of this volcanic eruption is small, and the ash aerosols and ash clouds from the volcano eruption do not disperse and spread widely as compared with some other large volcanoes. Even though there is no available VEI reading for this eruption, the historical VEI values of this volcano are in a range of 02, which represents the eruption volume ranging between <105 103 km3 according to the Global Volcanism Program from the Smithsonian Institution (http://www.volcano.si.edu). This implies that the Tonga eruption is indeed much smaller in its scale and effects on the ocean and atmosphere compared with some considerably large volcanic eruptions such as the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which was scaled at a VEI of 6 corresponding to an ejection volume of 10 km3 .

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Acknowledgements This research was supported by NASA and NOAA funding and grants. The MODIS L1B data were obtained from the NASA/GSFC MODAPS Services website. The views, opinions and ndings contained in this article are those of the authors and should not be construed as an ofcial NOAA or US Government position, policy or decision.

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