Technical Note of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, No. 380 ; July, 2013
* Japan Meteorological Agency Volcanological Division
Volcanic ash adversely affects the aviation industry by causing engine failure, abrasion of windshields that reduces visibility, and ashfall on runways that prevents takeoff and landing. To mitigate such effects, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), working together with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), recommended establishment of Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAACs) and designated nine centers covering the world (Fig. 1). The VAACs are in charge of issuing Volcanic Ash Advisories (VAAs) that predict the extent and movement of volcanic ash. Tasked with monitoring movement of volcanic ash for East Asia and the Northwest Pacific airspace, the Tokyo VAAC was established at the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and commenced operations in 1997 (Sawada, 1997).
When the Tokyo VAAC receives information about an eruption or ash plume from a volcano observatory or pilot in its area of responsibility, or observes an ash cloud
Technical Note of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, No. 380 ; July, 2013 maps in hourly intervals for up to six hours. For
espe-cially active volcanoes in Japan, assuming they erupt on a certain scale, ash distribution maps in hourly intervals up to six hours ahead are issued at 3:00 AM (JST), 9:00 AM, 3:00 PM, and 9:00 PM.
When the Tokyo VAAC began operations in 1997, full-time staff at the Haneda Aviation Weather Service Center carried out the center’s services during the day when air traffic was busy. During the night when there was little air traffic, staff at the Seismological and Volcanological Department, JMA at Otemachi in Tokyo conducted VAAC operations along with their own tasks. Volcanic activity in Tokyo VAAC’s area of responsibility was relatively calm in the early years, so few VAAs were issued and there were no major organizational problems. But more recently, Sakurajima and several volcanoes on Kamchatka penin-sula have become active and this has caused the number of VAAs to soar. Since 2009, more than 1,000 VAAs have been issued annually, which is roughly ten times the number issued when the Tokyo VAAC was first estab-lished. In order to handle the increased work load, separate operations were consolidated at the JMA Seismological and Volcanological Department in March 2006, and full-time staff were added in June 2011 to monitor ash clouds
and issue VAAs 24 hours a day.
In April 2010, airspace all across northern Europe was affected—planes were grounded and enormous financial losses incurred—by volcanic ash contamination in the upper atmosphere for well over a week from the erup-tion of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. In response to this, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, EUROCONTROL, rushed through an air traffic control scheme based on calculated concentration of volcanic ash. To underpin such efforts, the ICAO is currently investigating the extent to which aircraft engines can tolerate concentrations of volcanic ash and drafting new standards for safe navigation. One challenge is that it’s not easy to accurately determine the concentration of volcanic ash using current meteorological satellite technology, so we are considering adding information to VAAs: specifically, whether the ash cloud is clearly discernible in satellite images and a confidence level.
Reference
1) Sawada, Y. (1997): Launch of volcanic ash on flight route operations. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan, 41, 14934-14939．
Fig. 2 Infrared differential image of volcanic ash plume over Kirishima-Shinmoedake observed by meteorological satellite (Himawari 7) at 5:00 AM January 27, 2011.
Volcanic Ash Advisories — S. SHIRATO
Fig. 3 Information Flow of Volcanic Ash Advisory.
Fig. 4 Volcanic Ash advisory information in Graphical format model (VAG).
Technical Note of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, No. 380 ; July, 2013
* Research Institute for Disaster Mitigation and Environmental Studies, Crisis & Environmental Management Policy Institute 1. Introduction
The Coordinating Committee for Prediction of Volcanic Eruptions (CCPVE) was established in 1974 when the National Plan for the Prediction of Volcanic Eruption was formulated. It is a private advisory organ of the Director General of the Meteorological Agency and has ambiguous responsibility and authority; nevertheless, it has been playing a major role in predicting volcanic eruptions in Japan. To discuss the contributions of the Committee to the mitigation of volcanic disasters we need to look back on the history of the National Plan for the Prediction of Volcanic Eruption.
2. Actions taken to formulate the Volcanic Eruption Pre-diction Plan
The history of studies of the observation of volcanic activities in Japan can be traced back to 1911, when Fusakichi Omori monitored earthquakes in a volcano observatory established on Asamayama by the Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee and Nagano Weather Station. Systematic studies on volcanoes by university researchers started in 1928, when Kenzo Sassa of the Faculty of Science at Kyoto Imperial University investigated the relationship between volcanic tremor and eruption at an Aso Volcanological Laboratory affiliated with the Faculty.
In 1933, Takeshi Minakami started geophysical observations at Yunodaira Observatory, which was the predecessor of the Asamayama Volcano Observatory of the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo. His studies of the relationship between earthquakes and eruption led the world’s volcanic observation research. Showashinzan of Usuzan erupted from 1943 to 1945. During the eruption, Minakami et al.
of the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo, by monitoring earthquakes and conducting leveling at the slope of the mountain, observed the process of the formation of a new volcano caused by dacite magma intrusion. The studies formed the foundations of volcanic activity observational studies in Japan, which