The powerful eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga on January 15, 2022 injected an unprecedented amount of water directly into the stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Louis Millan, an atmospheric scientist who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
When the volcano erupted, the seawater came into direct contact with the erupting lava and was superheated, creating “explosive steam”.
NASA scientists say the vapor will remain for years, possibly affecting Earth’s global average temperature. The steam usually takes about 2-3 years to dissipate, but the water from the January 15 eruption could take 5-10 years to evaporate.
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai “may be the first volcanic eruption observed to affect climate not through surface cooling caused by volcanic sulfate aerosols, but rather through surface warming,” Milan hypothesized in a paper.
A photo by the Tonga Geological Service shows activity at the Tonga volcano on January 14, days before its main eruption. Facebook/Tonga Geological Servic A pillar rises above Tonga after the eruption on January 15. NOAA/SSEC/CIMSS via REUTERS The ash pillar from Hunga Tonga- Hunga Ha’apai the day after the volcanic eruption. NASA Earth Observatory image from
Millán led a study examining the amount of water vapor the volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface.
Milan and his colleagues found that the Tonga volcano sent about 146 tetragrams (1 tetragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into the Earth’s stratosphere. The amount of water shot into the stratosphere is equal to 10% of the water already present in the atmosphere. Their research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
The eruption came from a volcano that is more than 12 miles wide. A day before the massive eruption, Tongan officials announced on Facebook that the volcano was erupting continuously. In the post, they report that the volcano sent a 3-mile-wide plume of ash, steam and gas rising 35 miles into the atmosphere.
The researchers also note how water vapor can weaken the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from harmful radiation from the sun.
Intact Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai in 2015. NASA Earth Observatory image from a survey of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano last year.AP
The study’s authors said it was still too early to predict the exact climate effects of the Tonga eruption. “It is critical that we continue to monitor the volcanic gases from this eruption and future ones to better determine their distinct role in climate,” Millan wrote.
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