NASA scientists reveal how trees can predict volcanic eruptions from space

Time of India

22-05-2025

Recent breakthroughs in satellite and environmental sensing technology have introduced a promising method for detecting volcanic unrest by monitoring changes in vegetation health from space.
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This innovative approach, supported by in-field data from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's AVUELO (Airborne Validation Unified Experiment: Land to Ocean) mission, enhances
early warning systems for volcanic eruptions
. By analysing how trees respond to volcanic CO₂ emissions, scientists can detect subtle signs of increased volcanic activity, potentially providing earlier alerts and improving the accuracy of volcanic forecasts, especially in remote or hard-to-reach areas.
NASA satellite images can spot volcanic activity through plant growth
As magma rises beneath the Earth's surface, it releases gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO₂). Although existing volcanic monitoring systems generally depend on seismic activity, ground deformation, and on-site gas measurements, detecting low-level CO₂ release from space is still a huge challenge due to atmospheric dilution and sensor limitations.
Source: NASA
Nonetheless, scientists have found a key biological proxy: trees.
Plant life, especially trees that grow near active volcanoes, may take up volcanic CO₂ through roots. This absorption can lead to visibly greener and healthier leaves as a result of the fertilization effect of more CO₂. These physiological effects can be measured using satellite imagery, providing an indirect but quantifiable measure of subsurface volcanic activity.
NASA tracks volcanic activity through vegetation changes
The AVUELO project, coupled with NASA's Landsat 8 satellite and airborne sensors, has shown the potential for spectral analysis to track these plant changes across vast and sometimes inaccessible volcanic areas.
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By mapping changes in vegetation indices—like the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)—researchers can detect regions where tree health has anomalously increased, which could be related to concurrent volcanic gas emissions.
Source: NASA
A dramatic demonstration of the phenomenon occurred alongside Costa Rica's Rincón de la Vieja volcano. Volcanic CO₂ there warmed and bubbled through water pools while altering vegetation on the ground at the same time.
Those observations on the ground as well as in orbit validate the idea that the health of trees could be an early warning sign of magmatic activity.
NASA aims to enhance volcano early warning systems
As Dr. Florian Schwandner, the Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA's Ames Research Center, explains, the intention is not to supplant current volcanic monitoring methods but to improve and add to their effectiveness. "Volcano early warning systems exist," Schwandner said, "The aim here is to make them better and make them earlier."
Conventional approaches are hampered by such volcanoes in remote or heavily forested areas with poor access for placing ground sensors. By utilizing tree response as a proxy for volcanic CO₂, this barrier can be overcome. As McGill University's Dr. Robert Bogue describes, "Volcanoes release a lot of carbon dioxide, but the modest quantities emitted before an eruption go undetectable from space. The concept is to look for something measurable instead—trees provide us with that signal.
How ground observations enhance satellite volcano monitoring
To verify satellite data, scientists integrate space data with ground observations. Field staff take leaf samples and obtain measurements of CO₂ near volcanoes to verify the accuracy of the vegetation changes determined by satellites. This synthesis approach guarantees the biological proxy's reliability and improves predictability. According to NASA reports, Dr. Nicole Guinn, a volcanologist at the University of Houston, highlighted the value of synthesizing a wide variety of satellite assets, ranging from NASA's Terra to ESA's Sentinel-2, in creating a complete image of the evolution of vegetation on volcanic terrain like Mount Etna in Italy.
But she noted that "satellite data alone is not enough," highlighting the need for field verification to establish coherence between vegetation signals and volcanic gas emissions.
This new approach marks a major breakthrough in remote sensing and environmental monitoring. Through the natural biological reactions of trees in response to volcanic gas release, researchers are creating an additional tool that might give earlier indications of volcanic eruptions—perhaps days or weeks ahead of conventional indicators.
Since climate-resilient monitoring grows more and more vital in the wake of increased global population areas around the vicinity of volcanic regions, this tree-based signal detection presents a scalable and non-invasive approach for the improvement of global volcanic early warning systems.
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