November 7, 2021
The almost 1,000- meter-tall volcano in the South Sandwich Islands regularly discovers a method to place on a program.
Mount Michael, an active stratovolcano in the South Sandwich Islands, is seen regularly by penguins than by individuals. It lies on Saunders Island, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000) miles from Antarctica and 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) from South America, and there are no irreversible human locals close by. For satellites looking down from area, the mountain is generally obscured by clouds. Still, the almost 1,000- meter-tall volcano regularly discovers a method to place on a program.
Some of the most typical display screens are wave clouds– the triangular, banded patterns of clouds that arise from the interfered with circulation of air around the volcano. But in this image, obtained on November 7, 2021, with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, the more engaging function is the intense white stream noticeable downwind of the island.
The function is perhaps a kind of cloud called a volcano track. These “tracks” take place when passing clouds connect with the gases and particles from a volcano. The additional particles from the volcano produce more and smaller sized cloud beads, that make the cloud appear better. “As the cloud moves over the volcano, the imprint of those smaller droplets stay in the cloud, resembling a stream or a track of different texture when seen from above,” stated NASA climatic researcher Santiago Gass ó, who spotted the feature and consistently searches for volcano tracks in satellite images.
Volcano tracks can be challenging to determine in natural-color images. This image is incorrect color, made up with a mix of shortwave infrared and blue light (OLI bands 7-6-2) to assist differentiate the track from the remainder of the cloud deck. Also discover the striking lenticular cloud. Unrelated to the volcanic activity, these clouds can establish at the crest of climatic waves that form when wind experiences a topographic barrier and is required up.
Volcano tracks are a beneficial tool for researchers attempting to find cases of less extreme volcanic activity. Such activity– the easy “puffs” of water vapor, particles, and gases– prevails, however typically goes unreported since the emissions generally remain listed below (or within) the clouds. By studying the clouds around these volcanic puffs, researchers have actually been getting insight into how clouds form and develop.
There is likewise the possibility that the plume from Mount Michael on November 7 increased above the cloud deck, indicating the function would be a normal volcanic plume, and not a volcano track. “The Landsat image has so much detail. I can see several shadows suggesting that what I called a volcano track is actually a plume positioned immediately above the cloud deck—low enough to cast a small shadow,” Gass ó stated. “But at the same time, it is unusual to have such an organized plume above the cloud deck without dissipating or thinning out more readily.”
Without lidar information to determine the function’s height, it is not possible to understand if the function is volcano track or a plume. Either method, Gass ó notes: “There is some beauty in it, right? In that same way, it triggers curiosity to find more.”
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, utilizing Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey.
