JASMIN used to show Tonga volcano had highest plume ever recorded

Satellite images confirm that the Tonga eruption in January 2022 produced the highest ever recorded volcanic plume, at 57 km high. The open-source data used to confirm this finding was processed on JASMIN - the UK’s data analysis facility for environmental science. 

‘It’s the first time we’ve ever recorded a volcanic plume reaching the mesosphere,’ said Dr Simon Proud, a National Centre for Earth Observation senior scientist at the University of Oxford and RAL Space. ‘Using JASMIN to process this data meant that I could store and share the very large datasets required. This meant my colleagues did not have to duplicate downloading the data.’ 

Dr Proud also made use of JASMIN’s batch compute cluster, called LOTUS, to parallelise the workflow, speeding up the time it took to get the results. 

‘I created all of the graphics that were distributed to the media using JASMIN. It’s a huge benefit being able to access all the computing services I need in one place.’ said Dr Proud.

You can read more about Simon’s research here.

You can find out more about the JASMIN services used by looking at our documentation: 

• Group workspaces
• LOTUS batch computing

The three satellites used to capture and evaluate the eruption were GOES-17 (USA), Himawari-8 (Japan) and GeoKompSat-2A (Korea).