Developed by the Computer Science Department at UPM, this system predicts the path of the emissions for up to three days.

Researchers from the Computer Science Department of the Technical University of Madrid have developed a system to predict the progress of the ash cloud of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. Although the volcano’s activity has decreased since the end of May, the eruption is not yet considered to have terminated.

The system is based on an estimation of the daily emissions from the volcano obtained from the observations of satellites OMI, GOME-2 and SCIAMACHY. It can consulted free of charge on the Internet.

The system combines the information on the behavior of the volcano, obtained twice daily from the aforementioned satellites, with the environmental data influencing the volcanic cloud, such as wind strength and direction, humidity in the air, etc.

In its development, the air quality forecasting system for all of Europe was used, which was also developed by the Department.

To this was added the information obtained by the satellites about emissions coming from the volcano.

The prognosis is based on the supposition that the volcanic cloud rises between 4.5 and 8 kilometers. The system analyses the information as if it were sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. The results are shown on three levels using Dobson units, which measure the quantity of ozone, and are used to determine the density of the ash cloud.