Monitoring the Thermal Activity of Kamchatkan Volcanoes during 2015–2022 Using Remote Sensing

Abstract

The powerful explosive eruptions with large volumes of volcanic ash pose a great danger to the population and jet aircraft. Global experience in monitoring volcanoes and observing changes in the parameters of their thermal anomalies is successfully used to analyze the activity of volcanoes and predict their danger to the population. The Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, with its 30 active volcanoes, is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world. The article considers the thermal activity in 2015–2022 of the Klyuchevskoy, Sheveluch, Bezymianny, and Karymsky volcanoes, whose rock composition varies from basaltic andesite to dacite. This study is based on the analysis of the Value of Temperature Difference between the thermal Anomaly and the Background (the VTDAB), obtained by manual processing of the AVHRR, MODIS, VIIRS, and MSU-MR satellite data in the VolSatView information system. Based on the VTDAB data, the following “background activity of the volcanoes” was determined: 20 °C for Sheveluch and Bezymianny, 12 °C for Klyuchevskoy, and 13–15 °C for Karymsky. This study showed that the highest temperature of the thermal anomaly corresponds to the juvenile magmatic material that arrived on the earth’s surface. The highest VTDAB is different for each volcano; it depends on the composition of the eruptive products produced by the volcano and on the character of an eruption. A joint analysis of the dynamics of the eruption of each volcano and changes in its thermal activity made it possible to determine the range of the VTDAB for different phases of a volcanic eruption.