The system, recently announced by United States researchers, uses data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network to create automated email alerts within minutes of suspicious lightning activity occurring near volcanoes.
The lightning-detection network was founded by since-retired Otago University physicist Richard Dowden, and the computer code for generating the new system's alerts was written by Dunedin-based Otago physics graduate James Brundell.
Craig Rodger, a senior lecturer in the Otago physics department, says the early warning system was "an exciting development" that could help ensure safer skies.
Dr Rodger, who leads New Zealand's activities involving the lightning detection network, said that in October this year, the alert system proved its potential by giving the first indication of an eruption in the Russian Far East.
An hour before the ash cloud appeared in satellite images, an automatic email was sent to Dr Brundell and researchers from the University of Washington and the US Geological Survey.
In some of the world's remote regions that otherwise lacked good monitoring of volcanic activity, this system could warn aircraft of "potentially hazardous ash plumes," he said.
He was "really pleased" Otago research was being used in a significant international scientific collaboration.
The risks posed by ash clouds were dramatically highlighted in June 1982, when a British Airways Boeing 747 , with 248 people aboard, lost power in all four engines when it flew into a volcanic ash cloud south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
It safely landed after the engines were restarted.
The new alert system involves monitoring lightning strikes occurring around the world's about 1500 volcanoes and aims to determine whether the strikes involve "explosive phase lightning", sparked by eruptions or consist of the more usual weather-related lightning.
The lightning network's 50 stations include one in Dunedin and consist of very low frequency (VLF) radio receivers that register the pulses created by lightning from up to 10,000km away.
Their data is constantly sent via the internet to two central processing computers - at the University of Washington in Seattle and the other at Otago University - which calculate the location of lightning strikes by triangulating pulse reports from several stations.