Study on anEnd-To-End System for Volcanic Ash Plume Monotoring and Prediction-Smash
Tampellini, Maria Lucia¹; Ferrucci, Fabrizio²; Tait, Steve²; Corradini, Stefano³; Spinetti, Claudia³; Buongiorno, Fabrizia³; Carboni, Elisa⁴; Pieter, Valks⁵; Sofiev, Mikhail^6
1CGS SpA, ITALY; ²IPGP, FRANCE; ³INGV, ITALY; ⁴University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM; ⁵DLR, GERMANY; ⁶FMI, FINLAND

The SMASH project has started its activity recently, in September 2012, as part of the General Studies Programme of the European Space Agency. SMASH is led by CGS SpA , and relies on the partnership of two Volcano Observatories (the "Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris" -IPGP - and the "Istituto Nazionale di Geologia e Vulcanologia" of Rome -INGV) and three scientific institutions: the University of Oxford, the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the German Aerospace Center. The broad scope of SMASH is the exploitation of current polar-orbiting satellite instruments for retrieval of quantitative measurement of volcanic SO2 and ash clouds parameters, such as: concentration, height, particle size distribution. In particular, main objectives of SMASH, to be achieved in a time frame of 18 months, are the following: 1) development of innovative satellite information products characterizing significant geophysical parameters at the eruption source; 2) development of innovative satellite information products for quantitative retrieval of volcanic ash and SO2 plumes; 3) definition of an optimal end-to-end system for volcanic ash monitoring and prediction for Europe, based on the existing remote sensing infrastructure.