NOAA Image of Ruapehu Ash Plume : 17th June 1996

NOAA Image of Ruapehu Ash Plume : 17th June 1996

Landcare Research's Gracefield site receives daily data from the NOAA-14 satellite.

NOAA-14 carries a sensor known as AVHRR which views the clouds and the ground in 5 wavelength bands; one visible, one at red/near infra-red, one at mid infra-red, and two at the thermal infra-red part of the spectrum.

This image was created by combining the visible, near infra-red, and one of the thermal infra-red bands to make a natural looking picture.

NOAA-14 orbits at an altitude of 870 km, and passes over New Zealand around 3 pm. It travels at a speed of 6.6 km/second, so it only takes a few minutes to scan an image like this.

This image is unusual in the small amount of cloud over the country, so it was pure luck that the eruption ocurred under these conditions. The ash cloud is at an altitude of about 20 km; you can see its shadow on the ground.

This kind of data from weather satellites is widely used to monitor environmental parameters such as vegetation index, (a measure of plant growth), and surface temperature, (useful for tracking ocean currents). The pixel size in this image is 1 Km rectified to the NZ metric map grid.

Landcare's image processing group at Gracefield deals with data from many satellites. The NOAA data is the only one received directly from the satellite, usually data arrives on CD from the satellite operator. We process data for a wide variety of end uses. Much of our work is with higher resolution images with pixel sizes down to 10 meters, and using visible, infra-red and radar wavelengths.

For more information about the Image Processing Services and Remotely Sensed data that Landcare Research provide please contact:

Stella BellissStella Belliss EmailSend email to Stella Belliss

Landcare Research
P.O. Box 40
Lincoln 7640

Phone: +64 3 321 9999
DDI: +64 3 321 9612
Fax: +64 3 321 9998

(Also of interest: Best AVHRR Images of the 95/96 Summer on CDROM)
We are keen to establish reciprocal links with other Ruapehu pages on the Net. We ask that any references be made to this page rather than to the image itself, as the associated text gives the image some context. If you are interested in establishing a reciprocal link then contact the Webmaster Email Send email to Webmaster .

This image was Observation of the Week (July 17-24) at NASA's Observatorium site.

Other Ruapehu Eruption resources on the net include: