Volcanologist Simon Carn, professor of geological and mining engineering and sciences at Michigan Tech, is available to speak about the Mauna Loa eruption. His expertise in volcanic degassing and volcanic eruption clouds will be of use in stories concerned with public health and safety. For stories about long-term impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate change, his research on sulfur dioxide emissions and their impacts on climate modeling will be of interest.
“The eruption is effusive rather than explosive, although its initial phase overnight on November 28 was quite energetic and injected some sulfur dioxide to high altitudes, possibly all the way to the tropopause,” said Carn. “That is unusual for this type of eruption. It also looks like the lava emitted by the eruption was so bright that the sensor was saturated, producing a ‘post-saturation recovery streak’ along the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) scan to the southeast. These streaks are only seen over very intense sources of visible radiation.”
For more comments on the Manua Loa eruption, follow @simoncarn on Twitter.
For more information about Carn's volcanology research, check out a recent webinar he gave titled "Sniffing Volcanoes from Space" and read a related MTU News story "Volcano Breath".
And for direct contact information, see Carn's Michigan Tech faculty webpage.
“Many people may not realize that volcanoes are continuously releasing quite large amounts of gas, and may do so for decades or even centuries,” says Carn. “Because the daily emissions are smaller than a big eruption, the effect of a single plume may not seem noticeable, but the cumulative effect of all volcanoes can be significant. In fact, on average, volcanoes release most of their gas when they’re not erupting.”
Biography: Dr. Simon Carn
PhD, Volcanology, Cambridge University
MS, Volcanology and Magmatic Processes, Université Blaise Pascal
BA, Earth Sciences, Oxford University
Carn's current research focus is the application of remote sensing data to studies of volcanic degassing, volcanic eruption clouds, and anthropogenic pollution. Space-borne sensors such as the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite now allow us to probe the chemistry of the lower troposphere and measure the abundance of sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone, bromine monoxide (BrO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and other important trace gases with unprecedented sensitivity. The cross-platform sensor synergy provided by NASA’s A-Train satellite constellation is advancing our knowledge of volcanic cloud composition and transport. Carn's main focus is SO2, a precursor of sulfate aerosol, which plays an important role in the atmosphere through negative climate forcing and impacts on cloud microphysics. The spatiotemporal variability of natural and anthropogenic SO2 emissions, and hence of global sulfate aerosol abundance, is poorly constrained, impacting the accuracy of climate models.
Research Interests
- Using satellite measurements to constrain global volcanic SO2 production and emissions from individual volcanoes
- Validation of OMI SO2 retrievals using correlative data from ground-based, airborne and space-borne instruments
- Tracking volcanic SO2 and ash clouds operationally for aviation hazard mitigation
- Remote sensing of tropospheric volcanic plumes using DOAS and FTIR
- Quantifying anthropogenic emissions of SO2 from sources such as copper smelters and oil and gas fields
- Mitigation of the environmental and health impacts of volcanic degassing using satellite data
- Comparisons between satellite observations and chemical transport model simulations of volcanic clouds and plumes
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