Benefits and limitations
The main advantage of the Ash RGB is that it shows the three major volcanic effluents (ash, sulphur dioxide and ice crystals formed from water vapour) in distinct colours, enabling users to observe them drifting from the site of an eruption.
Limitations
- Limited detection of ash and sulphur dioxide when present with ice particles (mixed volcanic clouds).
- Black cirrus can be a part of either volcanic or non-volcanic cloud systems.
- Some features in the RGB image might have similar colour as the SO2 plume (especially at high latitudes and near the edges of the images of full Earth disk), see Figs. 6 and 10.