Volcanic Eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula
Suomi NPP Day Night Band imagery from the NASA Worldview site, had a large increase in luminance over southwest Iceland on 19 December, to the southwest of the Capitol of Reykjavik. That is shown below in the toggle of 18 December and 19 December 2023 imagery. (Click here for a map of southwest Iceland) Light emitted by the ongoing volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula is detected by the Day Night band sensor on VIIRS on 19 December (when Aurora Borealis are also apparent!). An annotated view of the 19 December image is also shown below.
JPSS data are available via an Amazon Webservices portal (here, for NOAA-20). The CSPP software package Polar2Grid can be used to turn the SDRs available at the portal into imagery. Appropriate VIIRS-DNB-SDR and matching VIIRS-DNB-GEO files, and the VIIRS-I04-SDR and VIIRS-IMG-GEO files (a sample of which are shown below), were saved to the local machine holding the Polar2Grid software. The times of the data to select were estimated from the NOAA-20 orbit paths on 18 December and on 19 December; on the 19th, NOAA-20 flew directly over the Reykjanes peninsula.
SVDNB_j01_d20231218_t0414482_e0416128_b31508_c20231218042644378000_oeac_ops.h5
GDNBO_j01_d20231218_t0414482_e0416128_b31508_c20231218042449010000_oeac_ops.h5
SVI04_j01_d20231218_t0414482_e0416128_b31508_c20231218042651572000_oeac_ops.h5
GIMGO_j01_d20231218_t0414482_e0416128_b31508_c20231218042458113000_oeac_ops.h5Then, 4 different Polar2Grid calls were used to create I04 (3.74 µm) and Day Night Band visible (0.7 µm) imagery on 18 December 2023 (before the eruption) and 19 December 2023 (during the eruption), and to add maps. Those 4 images are shown below with 18 December on the left and 19 December on the right. Note the great increase in brightness and the increase in sensed temperature on 19 December!
In spite of frequent dense cloud cover and an oblique satellite viewng angle, a distinct hot thermal signature of the Sundhnúksgígar fissure eruption (yellow to red pixels) was occasionally apparent in GOES-16 (GOES-East) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) imagery (below). Station identifier BIRK is Reykjavik Airport, and BIKF is Keflavik International Airport.
GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images, from 2200 UTC on 18 December to 1100 UTC on 19 December (courtesy Scott Bachmeier, CIMSS) [click to play animated GIF | MP4]
Given that the fissure eruption and subsequent lava flows were occurring during the nighttime hours, the thermal signature also showed up well in GOES-16 Near-Infrared 1.61 µm and 2.24 µm imagery (below).
GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm, top), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm, middle) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, bottom) images, from 2200 UTC on 18 December to 1100 UTC on 19 December (courtesy Scott Bachmeier, CIMSS) [click to play animated GIF | MP4]
NOAA-21 Imagery (courtesy William Straka, CIMSS), below, show that the eruption continued during the morning hours of 20 December 2023.
