Kilpisjärvellä Planetarium film

Hey guys,

This Thursday I went to see Planetarium films in Heureka. The event was part of DocPoin film festival.

Even the sky won’t be the limit when DocPoint extends the festival programme into a new venue: Heureka. The Heureka Planetarium is one of the most modern FullDome theaters in Europe. In FullDome the films are projected onto a hemisphere-shaped silver screen. Experience the documentaries in a whole new way!

There were four short films:

Domefest Demo (3 min)

Losing the Dark (USA, 2013, 12 min, prod. International Dark-Sky Association, Loch Ness Productions)
Starry skies are a becoming a rare sight as light pollution is washing away our view of the cosmos. It not only threatens astronomy, it disrupts wildlife, and affects human health. The yellow glows over cities and towns – seen so clearly from out of space – remind us of the wasted energy and money used for lighting up the sky. 

Dynamic Earth (USA, 2012, 24 min, dir.Thomas Lucas)
Dynamic Earth explores the inner workings of Earth’s climate system. With visualizations based on satellite monitoring data and advanced supercomputer simulations, this cutting-edge procuction follows a trail of rnergy that flows from the Sun into the interlocking systems that shape our climate: the atmosphere, oceans, and the biosphere. 

Kilpisjärvellä (Finland, 2012, 17 min, dir Axel Straschnoy, prod. Mark Lwoff, Misha Jaari / Buf0)
Kilpisjärvellä presents the Northern Lights as they are experienced by someone watching them from the ground. We follow two cameramen who are working to record them on video as they walk through the tundra in order to get away from any artificial lights, and they look for the best spot to capture them. We experience the simple issues of their everyday life, such as getting water from under the ice, chopping wood or preparing a meal. Finally, we also see the lights themselves.

The last one was probably the most interesting among these films and it was also the first Finnish FullDome film. The Argentinian director (who lives in Helsinki) was present and after the screening there was a little Q&A. The film was maybe a little bit too ”artistic” for my taste. It was understandable since Kilpisjärvellä was his first FullDome film and the idea was just simply to go in Lapland for three weeks and make movie. In fact, there were only handful of scenes where the FullDome technique was actually usefull. He told that his next film will be more ambitious. Interestingly, he told that there are no videocameras for making FullDome films (at all!?). Instead he used a normal camera and the film was put together from still shots. Here is a 30 second clip from the film:


Clip from the film KILPISJÄRVELLÄ from Bufo on Vimeo.

One thing that I was constantly thinking during the screening was that how would my satellite data look on that planetarium screen…

Ciao,
Janne

Validation of satellite SO2 observations in northern Finland during the Icelandic Holuhraun fissure eruption

Hello,

Last Friday our paper "Validation of satellite SO₂ observations in northern Finland during the Icelandic Holuhraun fissure eruption" was published as a discussion paper in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. The paper shows the validation results of the satellite SO₂ observations from OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) and OMPS (Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite) during the Icelandic Holuhraun fissure eruption in September 2014. The volcanic plume reached Finland on several days during the month of September.

SO₂ total columns as seen from OMI TRL product during the Holuhraun fissure eruption for six days in September 2014. The dates (day/month) are indicated in the title of each panel. The blue crosses indicate the location of Sodankylä ground-based station.

The satellite products assuming a priori profile with SO₂ predominantly in the planetary boundary layer give total column values close to the ground-based data, suggesting that the volcanic SO₂ plume was located at particularly low altitudes. This is connected to the fact that this was a continuous effusive fissure eruption, without explosive activity, and most of the SO₂ was emitted into the troposphere.

The analysis of the SO₂ surface concentrations at four air quality stations in northern Finland supports the hypothesis that the volcanic plume coming from Iceland was located very close to the surface. The time evolution of the SO₂ concentrations peaks during the same days when large SO₂ total column values are measured by the Brewer in Sodankylä and enhanced SO₂ signal is visible over northern Finland from the satellite maps. This is an exceptional case because the SO₂ volcanic emission directly affect the air quality levels at surface in an otherwise pristine environment like northern Finland. 

You can read the paper from this link.

Citation: Ialongo, I., Hakkarainen, J., Kivi, R., Anttila, P., Krotkov, N. A., Yang, K., Li, C., Tukiainen, S., Hassinen, S., and Tamminen, J.: Validation of satellite SO₂ observations in northern Finland during the Icelandic Holuhraun fissure eruption, Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., 8, 599-621, doi:10.5194/amtd-8-599-2015, 2015.