IREA-CNR & I-AMICA to detect the deformation of the earth’s surface caused by the recent earthquake sequence of central Italy.

Despite the copious snow cover and the adverse weather conditions, the Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 satellites allowed a team of IREA-CNR scientists to retrieve the Earth’s surface deformation induced by the recent seismic sequence in central Italy, whose main shock reached a magnitude of Mw 5.5 on 18 January 2017.

Thanks to the joint processing of two radar images acquired across the main event by the Sentinel-1 satellite constellation of the European Copernicus program, it was possible to generate the so-called co-seismic Interferogram (see Figure 1a), a map that permits scientists to directly relate the radar signal to the displacement of the ground.

Exploiting the ALOS-2 data of the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), it has also been carried out a similar analysis that confirms the main findings obtained via the Sentinel-1 data (see Figure 1b).

Starting from the shown interferograms, the corresponding displacement maps have also been generated. They show (see Figures 1c and 1d) that the Earth surface moved away from the satellite with a maximum of about 10 cm in an area south to Amatrice. A zoom of the area affected by the coseismic deformation (displayed in red) is shown in figure 2.

These maps have been subsequently provided to INGV for modeling the causative source of the seismic event.

The activity is coordinated by the Italian Department of Civil Protection (DPC) and is performed by a research team of the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment of the National Research Council (CNR-IREA in Naples) and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), which are centers of competence in the satellite data processing and seismology sectors, respectively, with the support of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The Copernicus program is led by the European Commission. The European Space Agency is in charge of developing the Sentinel satellites; ESA also operates the two Sentinel-1 satellites. The ALOS-2 data were provided by JAXA in the framework of an agreement with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) for the exchange of data useful to emergency management.

The activity has been also supported by the GEP project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the project “High Technological Infrastructure for Integrated Monitoring of Climate and Environment”, I-AMICA, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research as part of the National Operational Programme (PON).     

Figure 1 – Co-seismic interferograms and displacement maps generated from Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 data. a) Sentinel-1 interferogram relevant to the 12012017-24012017 ascending pair (Track 117). b) ALOS-2 interferogram relevant to the 02112016-25012017 ascending pair (Track 197). c) Displacement map (in LOS) computed from the Sentinel-1 interferogram of Figure 1a. d) Displacement map (in LOS) computed from the ALSO-2 interferogram of Figure 1b. Black star indicates the location of the Mw 5.5 epicenter of the 18 January 2017. Black lines indicate main regional structures. Contains modified Copernicus data (2017) and ALSO-2 data (©JAXA 2016-2017).

Figure 2 – Zoom of the area affected by the co-seismic deformations obtained from the Sentinel-1 map of Figure 1c.

For more information, please visit the site:  http://www.irea.cnr.it/en/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=583:the-italy-18-january-2017-earthquake-captured-by-the-sentinel-1-and-alos-2-satellite-radar-data

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L'articolo May 2016: Intense Saharan dust transport event over the Mediterranean sembra essere il primo su iamica.bo.cnr.it.

In particular, on March 22 the Observatory of Granitola recorded a daily concentration that exceeded 110 micrograms / m3 as shown in the graph below. The intense event was recorded from 18 to 22 LT with temperatures that reached 18 ° C. The other observatory instruments devoted to chemical and physical atmospheric aerosol observations recorded exceptional values for the “coarse” particulates as well as the scattering coefficient.

https://weather.com/news/news/dust-storm-tunisia-sicily

The MODIS satellite images of March 22, 2016  illustrate the intense transport of sand from the Sahara.

L'articolo March 22-23, 2016: exceptional Saharan sandstorm over the Mediterranean. sembra essere il primo su iamica.bo.cnr.it.

ICOS RI IS A PAN-EUROPEAN RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE WHICH PROVIDES HARMONIZED AND HIGH PRECISION SCIENTIFIC DATA ON CARBON CYCLE AND GREENHOUSE GAS BUDGET AND PERTURBATIONS. ICOS DATA IS OPENLY AVAILABLE AT THE CARBON PORTAL. THE CARBON PORTAL IS A ONE-STOP SHOP FOR ALL ICOS DATA PRODUCTS.

ICOS RI is an organisation of eight founding member countries and 100 greenhouse gases measuring stations aimed at quantifying and understanding the greenhouse gas balance of the Europe and neighbouring regions.

The European Commission has officially established ERIC ICOS – Integrated Carbon Observation System (Integrated Carbon Observation on), a new pan-European research infrastructure that aims to provide long term observations on greenhouse gases across Europe. The founding members of ICOS ERIC are eight: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland (home of the ERIC), and Switzerland, which currently is part of the initiative as an observer.

The Italian contribution to ICOS is represented by numerous stations of observation and data collection in three components: the atmosphere (with the measurement sites of Monte Cimone, Lampedusa, Potenza and Plateau Rosa), ecosystems (with sites Castelporziano, Borgo Cioffi, Renon, Negrisia, Monte Bondone, Capodimonte, Arca, Bosco Fontana and Torgnon) and oceans (sites of Miramare, Paloma, E2M3A in Ardiatic Sea and W1M3A in the Tyrrhenian Sea).

The PON I-AMICA supported the realization of the forest stations of BOSCO DI CAPODIMONTE and BORGO CIOFFI.

L'articolo ‘ICOS ERIC’ and the I-AMICA contribution sembra essere il primo su iamica.bo.cnr.it.

The “World Air Quality” Project (http://aqicn.org) was started in 2007 and its core team is located in Beijing (china). The Project aim is to promote, by implementing an easy-to-use visualization tool,  free information concerning the air quality recorded by 16000 measurement station in the World.

The web-based visualization tool allows to obtain, for each measurement station, the Current Air Quality Index (using the US EPA instant-case scale) as well as individual air quality indexes for each observed pollutants in the last 48 hours.

Currently, the three I-AMICA Environmental-Climatic Observatories (WMO/GAW Regional Stations) together with the Climatic Observatory “O. Vittori” at Mt. Cimone (WMO/GAW Global Station), are the only Italian measurement stations contributing to this initiative (http://aqicn.org/map/italy/).

L'articolo I-AMICA Observatories are contributing to the “World Air Quality” Project sembra essere il primo su iamica.bo.cnr.it.