Near-tactical eruption rate monitoring of Pu’u O’o (Hawaii) 2000-2005 by synergetic merge of payloads ASTER and MODIS

The thermal monitoring of the last 5 years of the longest lasting eruption worldwide was attempted by synergetic merge of three distinct multispectral payloads, and the use of ad- hoc developed computing routines, "MyVOL" and "MyMOD". The latter, are based on auto-adaptive, automated processes involving high-resolution SWIR-TIR and low-resolution MIR- TIR radiances. Both routines were tested on large and dense eruptive data sequences, acquired between 2000-2005 on Piton de la Fournaise, Reunion Island (NW Indian Ocean), Kilauea (Hawaii), Mt. Etna and Stromboli (Italy). Here, instantaneous lava effusion rate values obtained from ASTER and MODIS for 2000-2005 segment of episode #55 of the Pu\´u O\´o eruption in Hawaii, are compared each other and to S02 and VLF ground measured data. Cooling lava flow maps obtained by ASTER are compared to published flow maps. Overall, the work involved the combined processing of 30 high-resolution ASTER scenes (from spacecraft Terra) and more than 2000 low-resolution, cloud-free MODIS scenes from spacecrafts Terra and Aqua.