APPLICATION OF THERMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS FOR THE SURVEILLANCE AND STUDY OF THE MOUNT RAINIER VOLCANO

Volcanoes can be monitored with the use of Thermography. The surface of every material has a specific Emissivity(ε), defined as the measure of an object's ability to emit infrared energy and that comes from the quantity of infrared rays emitted by the same material, e.g. irradiated from the same body during time. Volcanoes, which are dynamic and not simply static objects, emit variation of the quantity of Energy accumulated and stored under forms of sensible variations of temperature. In the phases of major activity and in proximity of an eruptive event, they emit major heat gradient and consequently more infrared rays and this is the purpose of the surveillance through thermal cameras. To this scope it is in operation already, in the Mediterranean Area, in Europe, a Remote Sensing platform called TIIMNET (Thermal Infrared Imagery Monitoring NETwork) for the active monitoring in real time of the thermal fluxes of volcanic areas of the Campania Region district: Vesuvius and Phlegraean Fields. This project can be extended even to the Active Surveillance of Mount Rainier. Thermal imaging data, especially when used together with other monitoring techniques (such as seismicity, GPS measurements, and gas emissions), helps to determine the nature of potential volcanic hazards.

Establishing a time series of the temperature changes together with other data series from the Mt. Rainier as like the support of integrated satellites images in conjunction with the most recent modern software and programs of imaging analysis can better picture its past and trace finely present and future behavior with the aim to be especially ready and promptly able to alert efficiently and in a decent time frame the population of all Greater Seattle Area in the case of sensible changes in all parameters of the system for which thermal anomalies are one of the fundamental warning features.