A new generation of satellites should dramatically improve the tracking of future volcanic ash clouds, but airlines and passengers weary of the disruption these cause may have to wait some time before implementation.
A pair of geostationary Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites, developed by the European Space Agency on behalf of meteorological organisation EUMETSAT, will carry infrared sensors capable of tracking ash clouds and their concentrations, and, crucially, transmitting measurements every 15min, day and night.
ESA also plans to launch two space-based Lidar satellites, which can detect the height and thickness of ash clouds using a system similar to radar that emits light rather than radio waves.
Unfortunately, the Lidar systems will only begin operating in 2014 at the earliest, while 2018 is the provisional launch date for the MTGs.
"We're stuck with the systems we have for now," says Dr Fred Prata, senior scientist for atmosphere and climate change at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research.
"We cannot put any new satellites up in the short term and co-ordinating the ground systems would take an awful lot of money."
Presently the US Calipso satellite provides the sole space-based Lidar system, but its Polar orbit only offers measurements every 100min, and even then not over the same location as its previous orbit due to the earth's rotation.
Another problem is that Lidar cannot distinguish ash from other particles, so it needs to work in conjunction with other sensors, such as infrared detecting at the necessary wavelength to see ash particles.
A geostationary, combined infrared-Lidar satellite would be the optimal system for detecting and analysing ash clouds and this is a likely recommendation from a jointly run ESA-EUMETSAT workshop.
This met in May to discuss new technologies for ash detection as well as better use of existing systems and data.
One goal, says ESA scientist Claus Zehner, who headed the workshop, is to provide "more credible information to aviation authorities and the public with models that are better validated with real measurements".
Source: Flight International
