NOAA satellite based volcanic ash retrievals for April 14, 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption

By Michael Pavolonis

NOAA/NESDIS

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Abstract

The goal of this post is to provide instructions on how to acquire the NOAA satellite based volcanic ash retrievals for April 14, 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption. The files, in HDF4 format, are available on anonymous FTP (the FTP will NOT be regularly scrubbed). About 12 GB of disk space is required to download all of the files.

1. ftp ftp.ssec.wisc.edu
2. login: anonymous
3. password: your email address
4. prompt
5. bin
6. cd /pub/geocat/eyjaf
7. mget *.hdf
8. bye

The file naming convention is: geocatL2.[satellite_name].[yyyy][ddd].[hh][mm][ss].hdf
yyyy: 4 digit year
ddd: 3 digit Julian day (1 - 365 for non leap years)
hh: 2 digit hour
mm: 2 digit minute within the hour
ss: 2 digit second within the minute

Each HDF4 file contains the following SDS's that will be of interest to the group:
pixel_latitude
pixel_longitude
volash_det_pix_2_7_10_11_14_15_ash_probability
volcld_ret_14_15_16_ash_top_height
volcld_ret_14_15_16_ash_mass_loading
volcld_ret_14_15_16_ash_effective_radius

Each SDS contains attributes that describe the data type.

Contact Mike.Pavolonis@noaa.gov if there are questions.

Cite this work

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

  • Michael Pavolonis (2013), "NOAA satellite based volcanic ash retrievals for April 14, 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption," https://theghub.org/resources/2468.

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