Volcanic activity is observed worldwide with a variety of ground and space-based remote sensing instruments, each with advantages and drawbacks. No single system can give a comprehensive description of eruptive activity, and so, a multi-sensor approach is required. This work integrates infrared and microwave volcanic ash retrievals obtained from the geostationary Meteosat Second Generation (MSG)-Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI), the polar-orbiting Aqua-MODIS and ground-based weather radar. The expected outcomes are improvements in satellite volcanic ash cloud retrieval (altitude, mass, aerosol optical depth and effective radius), the generation of new satellite products (ash concentration and particle number density in the thermal infrared) and better characterization of volcanic eruptions (plume altitude, total ash mass erupted and particle number density from thermal infrared to microwave). This approach is the core of the multi-platform volcanic ash cloud estimation procedure being developed within the European FP7-APhoRISM project. The Mt. Etna (Sicily, Italy) volcano lava fountaining event of 23 November 2013 was considered as a test case. The results of the integration show the presence of two volcanic cloud layers at different altitudes. The improvement of the volcanic ash cloud altitude leads to a mean difference between the SEVIRI ash mass estimations, before and after the integration, of about the 30%. Moreover, the percentage of the airborne "fine" ash retrieved from the satellite is estimated to be about 1%-2% of the total ash emitted during the eruption. Finally, all of the estimated parameters (volcanic ash cloud altitude, thickness and total mass) were also validated with ground-based visible camera measurements, HYSPLIT forward trajectories, Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) satellite data and tephra deposits.

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Radar-rainfall estimation is a complex process that involves several error sources, some of which are related to the environmental context. The presence of orographic obstacles heavily affects the quality of the retrieved radar products. In relatively flat terrain conditions, dual-polarization capability has been proven either to increase the data quality or to improve the rainfall estimate. The potential benefit of using polarimetric techniques for precipitation retrieval is evaluated here using data coming from two radar systems operating in Italy under complex-orography conditions. The analysis outlines encouraging results that might open new scenarios for operational applications. Indeed, the applied rainfall algorithm employing specific differential phase mostly outperformed the examined reflectivity-based retrieval techniques except for the analyzed winter storm. In the latter case, the likely contamination by frozen or melting snow tended to degrade the performance of the examined K-dp-based rainfall algorithms

The mass discharge rate is a key parameter for initializing volcanic ash dispersal models. Commonly used empirical approaches derive the discharge rate by the plume height as estimated by remote sensors. A novel approach based on the combination of weather radar observations and thermal camera imagery is presented here. It is based on radar ash concentration estimation and the retrieval of the vertical exit velocities of the explosive cloud using thermal camera measurements. The applied radar retrieval methodology is taken from a revision of previously presented work. Based on the analysis of four eruption events of the Mount Etna volcano (Sicily, Italy) that occurred in December 2015, the proposed methodology is tested using observations collected by three radar systems (at C and X band) operated by the Italian Department of Civil Protection. The total erupted mass was estimated to be about 9·109 kg and 2.4·109 kg for the first and second events, respectively, while it was about 1.2·109 kg for both the last two episodes. The comparison with empirical approaches based on radar‐retrieved plume height shows a reasonably good agreement. Additionally, the comparative analysis of the polarimetric radar measurements provides interesting information on the vertical structure of the ash plume, including the size of the eruption column and the height of the gas thrust region.

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