puffin

By Marcus I Bursik1, Alejandro Uriel Carbonara1, Sean Michael Zawicki1

1. University at Buffalo, SUNY (UB)

Provides a tool to run the volcanic ash dispersal model -- puff -- based on the plume trajectory model -- bent.

Launch Tool

This tool version is unpublished and cannot be run. If you would like to have this version staged, you can put a request through HUB Support.

Archive Version 1.2
Published on 07 May 2013
Latest version: 1.3.3. All versions

Open source: license | download

Category

*Tools

Published on

Abstract

This program is a coupling of the programs Puffin (also known as Bent) and Puff. For information on how to run puffin, check out the [https://vhub.org/explore/topics/RunningPuffinonVhub topics page]. Both programs are described below. Puffin: Puffin is a theoretical model of a volcanic plume, based on applying the equations of motion in a plume-centered coordinate system. Puffin suggests that the interaction between a volcanic plume and wind causes enhanced entrainment of air and horizontal momentum, plume bending, and a decrease in plume rise height at constant eruption rate. Because of rapid dilution in the high windspeeds of the polar jet, plumes that vary over more than one order of magnitude in mass eruption rate (10^ to 10^ kg/s), if injected into the polar jet, may all attain rise heights only slightly different from that of the core of the jet, ~10 km, as opposed to 17 – 33 km in a still atmosphere. The model outputs plume trajectories and rise heights, as well as pyroclast loadings as a function of height, and can therefore be used to produce input for advection-diffusion and volcanic ash transport models such as tephra2 or puff. Puff: Puff simulates the transport, dispersion and sedimentation of volcanic ash. It requires horizontal wind field data as a function of height on a regular grid covering the area of interest. Puff output includes the location (in 3 dimensions), size, and age-since-eruption of representative ash particles. Puff can also produce gridded data of relative and absolute ash concentration in the air and on the ground. Puff is a fast and efficient research and operational tool for predicting the trajectories of ash particles, which is essential for hazard assessment. Image: After Puff runs, an image is made, visually depicting the ash cloud. Ashxp and ashgmt are used to convert cdf files into jpgs and pngs. ImageMagick is then used to combine these pictures into an animated gif. Note that puff MUST have ash outputs checked in order to create the animated ash images, because they require the cdf files.

Sponsoredby

Nuclear Defense Agency, National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

References

Bent/Puffin: M. Bursik. Effect of wind on the rise height of volcanic plumes. Geophysical Research Letters, 28:3621–3624, 2001. Puff: Searcy, C., K. Dean, and B. Stringer, PUFF: A high-resolution volcanic ash tracking model, J. Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 80, 1–16, 1998.

Publications

Marcus Bursik, Shannon Kobs, Aaron Burns, Olga Braitseva, Liliana Bazanova, Ivan Melekestsev, Andrei Kurbatov, and David Pieri. Volcanic plumes and the wind: jetstream interaction examples and implications for air traffic. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 2009. doi:10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2009.01.021.

Cite this work

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

  • Marcus I Bursik; Alejandro Uriel Carbonara; Sean Michael Zawicki (2019), "puffin," https://theghub.org/resources/puffin.

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