Approach for volcanic surveillance using satellite-borne microwave radiometer data

Volcanic surveillance is one of the practical fields for remotesensing technology. Monitoring of thermal anomalies on volcanoes by infrared radiometer and detection of slight landsurface deformations around volcanoes by interferometry of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) are good examples. However, an infrared radiometer is a little nervous for clouds which cover volcanoes, and interferometry of SAR also has a weakness that the time resolution becomes low in exchange for high spatial resolution. Meanwhile, focusing on microwave radiometer, we know it is less affected by clouds than infrared radiometer. Its time resolution is also higher than interferometry of SAR. Therefore, microwave radiometer can become a promising tool for volcanic surveillance. But, a new methodology to compensate its coase spatial resolution is essential. It was a serious problem.