创新背景

由于背景大气中的高浓度，火山二氧化碳排放的测量具有挑战性。测量需要在离活跃的火山口非常近的地方进行，而在像马纳姆这样的危险火山，无人机是安全获取样本的唯一途径。然而，在火山环境下进行超视距无人机飞行的尝试很少。

创新过程

该团队的研究结果发表在《科学进展》杂志上，首次展示了如何将来自空气、地球和太空的测量结果结合起来，以更多地了解地球上最难以接近的高度活跃的火山。上述项目涉及来自英国、美国、加拿大、意大利、瑞典、德国、哥斯达黎加、新西兰和巴布亚新几内亚的专家，涉及火山学和航空航天工程。

通过使用改良的远程无人机，他们共同创造了测量活火山气体排放的挑战的解决方案。通过将现场航空测量与卫星和地面遥感器的结果结合起来，研究人员可以收集到比以前更丰富的数据集。这使他们能够远程监测活火山，提高对全球火山释放的二氧化碳(CO2)的了解，更重要的是，了解这些碳来自哪里。
计算火山排放物中硫和二氧化碳含量的比例对于确定火山爆发的可能性至关重要，因为它可以帮助火山学家确定岩浆的位置。

项目负责人艾玛·刘博士(伦敦大学学院地球科学)说:“我们还没有对马纳姆进行详细研究，但我们可以从卫星数据中看到，它正在产生强烈的排放。”国内火山监测研究所的资源很少，团队的工作量非常大，但他们确实帮助我们与马南岛的社区建立了联系。”
在实地工作之后，研究人员筹集了资金，购买了计算机、太阳能电池板和其他技术，使当地社区——他们已经组建了一个防灾小组——能够从岛上通过卫星进行通信，并向拉鲍尔火山观测站的工作人员提供无人机操作培训，以协助他们的监测工作。以上是深碳观测站(DCO)的一部分，这是一个由科学家组成的全球社区，致力于十年来对地球碳的更多了解。

创新价值

了解当今控制火山碳排放的因素将揭示过去气候是如何变化的，从而揭示如何对未来气候对当前人类的影响作出反应。

创新关键点

在无人机上安装了微型气体传感器、光谱仪和可自动开启和关闭的采样设备，该团队得以将无人机飞到2公里高、6公里外的马纳姆峰顶，在那里捕捉到气体样本，并在数小时内进行分析。

创新主体

伦敦大学学院（University College London，简称：UCL ），1826年创立于英国伦敦，是一所公立研究型大学，为伦敦大学联盟的创校学院、罗素大学集团和欧洲研究型大学联盟创始成员，被誉为金三角名校和“G5超级精英大学”之一。
UCL是伦敦的第一所大学，以其多元的学科设置著称，于REF 2014 英国大学官方排名中，位列全英之冠，享有最多的科研经费。UCL的医学、解剖学和生理学、建筑学、教育学、考古学、计算机科学、计算金融学等学科排名均位居世界前列，与LSE并称为“英国现代经济学研究的双子星”；其人文学院颁发的奥威尔奖则是政治写作界的最高荣誉。

New drone technology improves ability to forecast volcanic eruptions

The team's results, published in the journal Science Advances, show for the first time how measurements from air, Earth, and space can be combined to learn more about the planet's most inaccessible highly active volcanoes. The projects involved experts from the UK, US, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Costa Rica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea in volcanology and aerospace engineering.
Together, they created a solution to the challenge of measuring gas emissions from active volcanoes by using modified long-range drones. By combining aerial measurements in the field with results from satellites and ground-based sensors, researchers can gather a much richer dataset than before. This allows them to remotely monitor active volcanoes, improving their understanding of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released by volcanoes around the globe and, more importantly, where that carbon is coming from.
Calculating the ratio of sulfur to carbon dioxide in a volcano's emissions is crucial to determining the likelihood of an eruption because it helps volcanologists pinpoint the location of magma.
Manan's last major eruption, in 2004-06, destroyed much of the island and forced some 4,000 people to relocate to the mainland; Their crops were destroyed and their water was polluted.
"We haven't studied Manham in detail yet, but we can see from the satellite data that it is producing strong emissions," said project leader Dr Emma Liu (University College London Geoscience). The Domestic Volcano Monitoring Institute had very few resources and the workload of the team was very heavy, but they really helped us to connect with the community on Manan Island."
After working in the field, researchers have raised the money, buy the computer, solar panels and other technology, make the local community, they have formed a team of disaster prevention, able to communicate via satellite from the island, and to pull the ball volcano observatory of unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) operation training for staff, to assist in their monitoring work. That's part of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), a global community of scientists working for a decade to learn more about Earth's carbon.