Recently, the submarine volcanoes in the South Pacific island country of Tonga have erupted twice in a row, which has triggered tsunamis in Japan, Australia, the United States and other places.
In 1991, Mount Pinatobo erupted in the Philippines, and a year later the global temperature dropped by nearly 0.5°C. Will the Tonga eruption have an impact on global temperatures? Will it pollute the world's air? What are the follow-up implications for us?
On January 17, Professor Xiao Long of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) said in an interview with Health Times that a strong volcanic eruption may cause an abnormal decrease in atmospheric temperature, creating a "volcanic winter". However, it is still necessary to continuously observe the activity of the volcano to determine the impact on temperature.
Professor Xiao Long introduced that the "volcanic winter" mainly depends on two factors, one is that if the amount of volcanic ash is huge and continues to enter the stratosphere, it will block the light radiated by the sun to the earth, resulting in a decrease in global temperature; the second is that the location of the Tonga volcanic eruption is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which may affect the La Niña Ocean Current from east to west, making the sea surface temperature continue to be abnormally cold. The follow-up effects of these two factors cannot be determined at this time. Therefore, the change in global temperature from this eruption cannot be determined.
This volcanic eruption in Tonga was mainly due to the movement of the Earth's plates. At present, the scale of the volcanic eruption in Tonga is initially estimated to be level 5 or 6, which has affected the pacific rim, triggering tsunamis in Japan, Australia and other places, and the coastal areas of zhejiang in the mainland have also detected abnormal increases in waves. However, what are the follow-up effects, and it is necessary to continue to observe whether there is a volcanic earthquake. Professor Xiao Long explained that this volcanic eruption is also accompanied by earthquakes and submarine landslides, and the superposition of these factors will produce a more intense tsunami.
In response to the concern of environmental pollution, Professor Xiao said that the Tonga volcano erupted on the seabed, and pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide were filtered by a large amount of seawater when they poured out, which will definitely pollute the surrounding water quality, and it is speculated that the impact of this eruption on marine ecology is relatively large. As for the impact of atmospheric levels, further monitoring of the atmosphere via satellites is needed to be known.
