Autonomous thermal camera system for monitoring the active lava lake at Erebus volcano, Antarctica

摘要

In December 2012, the Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory installed a thermalinfrared camera system to monitor the volcano's active lava lake. The newsystem is designed to be autonomous, and capable of capturing images of thelava lake continuously throughout the year. This represents a significantimprovement over previous systems which required the frequent attention ofobservatory researchers and could therefore only be operated during a fewweeks of the annual field campaigns. The extreme environmental conditions atthe summit of Erebus pose significant challenges for continuous monitoringequipment, and a custom-made system was the only viable solution. Here wedescribe the hardware and software of the new system in detail and report ona publicly available online repository where data will be archived. Aspectsof the technical solutions we had to find in order to overcome the challengesof automating this equipment may be relevant in other environmental sciencedomains where remote instrument operation is involved.