Retrieving Volcanic Ash Top Height through Combined Polar Orbit Active and Geostationary Passive Remote Sensing Data

• Published in: Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Weiren Zhu, Lin Zhu, Jun Li, Hongfu Sun
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020
• Subjects: volcanic ash cloud top height; stacked noise reduction encoder; caliop radar data; geostationary satellite imager; retrieval algorithm; deep learning; Science; Q; Eyjafjallajökull
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12060953; https://doaj.org/article/d681688c7a854d0eae2f7532c65a8996

Taking advantage of both the polar orbit active remote sensing data (from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization—CALIOP) and vertical information and the geostationary passive remote sensing measurements (from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager) with large coverage, a methodology is developed for retrieving the volcanic ash cloud top height (VTH) from combined CALIOP and Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) data. This methodology is a deep-learning-based algorithm through hybrid use of Stacked Denoising AutoEncoder (SDA), the Genetic Algorithm (GA), and the Least Squares Support Vector Regression (LSSVR). A series of eruptions over Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano from April to May 2010 and the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex eruptions in Chilean Andes in June 2011 were selected as typical cases for independent validation of the VTH retrievals under various meteorological backgrounds. It is demonstrated that using the hybrid deep learning algorithm, the nonlinear relationship between satellite-based infrared (IR) radiance measurements and the VTH can be well established. The hybrid deep learning algorithm not only performs well under a relatively simple meteorological background but also is robust under more complex meteorological conditions. Adding atmospheric temperature vertical profile as additional information further improves the accuracy of VTH retrievals. The methodology and approaches can be applied to the measurements from the advanced imagers onboard the new generation of international geostationary (GEO) weather satellites for retrieving the VTH science product.