The accuracy of SO2 cameras is significantly determined by the ability to obtain an accurate calibration. This work presents a real-time continuous calibration method for SO2 cameras with a moderate resolution spectrometer by taking realistic radiative transfer into account. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method have been verified through simulations and experiments. The calibration error can be reduced by about 20-80% compared with the commonly used cell calibration, especially for situations of long distance, poor visibility, or optically thick plumes. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America