The whole world is worried about Tonga's volcanoes.
The last time the southern hemisphere island nation had such a high presence was probably at the Tokyo Olympics.
The flag bearer of the Tonga delegation attracted the attention of countless people with his polished muscles.
The flag bearer is currently living in Australia, and he said through social media the day before yesterday that he had disappeared from his father and other family members.
On the morning of the 15th, a Chinese blogger living in Tonga photographed the purple-red sky shrouded in volcanic ash.
But after posting this message on Weibo, she did not appear again.
Later, a domestic reporter contacted the blogger's friend Ms. Liu, who also confirmed that he had lost contact with the blogger.
At present, there are thousands of messages under this Weibo, and netizens are waiting for her to appear again.
Everything is because the whole territory of Tonga has been in a state of disconnection with the outside world since the afternoon of the 15th.
An undersea volcano located in the south Pacific island nation has undergone several violent eruptions in recent days.
The first large-scale eruption was on Friday, triggering a tsunami in the local coastal area.
"The ash pillar is 5 kilometers in diameter and 20 kilometers high, and it hangs over the volcano."
At 5:14 p.m. on January 14, the volcano erupted. Taaniela Kula_ TGS diagram
If that's all there is to it, it may only be disaster news for us in a distant country.
But before the whole world could react, on the afternoon of the 15th, the volcano had a second violent eruption.
According to experts, the energy is equivalent to 1,000 nuclear bombs exploding in the Pacific Ocean.
Seeing the pictures of the scene, netizens only had one thought left - "Oh my God! Such a big volcano! ”
On the 15th, the eruption screen showed that the cloud range was significantly wider than the previous day. Screenshot of @Haike News video
01 How big is the eruption battle this time?
In Fiji, 800 kilometers from the volcano, residents' houses shook for half an hour.
A Chinese, who lives in a fiji coastal city, said his family was playing cards at the time, "at first I thought it was thunder, but soon the whole house was shaking and the doors were ping-pong like an earthquake".
Ecuador, more than 10,000 kilometers away, separated from Tonga by most of the Pacific Ocean, still did not escape the impact of the tsunami, and the fishing boats trembled under the impact of the huge waves, and people were terrified to see.
Tonga, the epicenter of the volcanic eruption, has been hit even more immensely.
Because of the impact of the tsunami and volcanic ash on communications equipment, various parts of Tonga have lost contact with the outside world since the afternoon of the previous day.
Its southern hemisphere "neighbor" New Zealand's prime minister has so far failed to speak to the prime minister of Tonga.
Due to poor internal communications in Tonga, most of the information is currently derived mainly from satellite cloud maps and geological analysis.
Volcanic eruptions on the H8 satellite cloud map. From tropicaltidibits
From the satellite cloud image, we can clearly see how violent the second eruption was.
The resulting Cumulus cumulus directly broke through the tropospheric apex and reached a diameter of nearly 500 km;
The "mushroom cloud" is clearly visible in the change of air flow, which reminds many people of the scene where the comet hits the earth in "Don't Look Up".
In addition to volcanic ash, there are shock waves.
This shock wave spread almost all over the world, and even in the united Kingdom, which is far away in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, barometers recorded barometric fluctuations.
@China Weather uses a very clever metaphor: it seems that the earth with a full stomach burps from the mantle and exhales a hot breath.
It's just that people may be physically and mentally comfortable with a full burp, and the earth burps a hiccup, and human beings are afraid that they will fart and urinate.
Another illustration of how exaggerated the eruption was is the following picture.
This is the Hong Aha Apay Island in Tonga, an uninhabited island formed by a volcanic eruption.
The one above was taken on the 7th of this month, and the full face of the island can be clearly seen at the time.
But after the eruption, the island was simply blown in half.
But I'm not talking about blowing up half of it, because the island isn't actually inhabited.
The point is that it is located right on top of the volcano where this eruption occurred.
Note that it is "an island above a volcano" and not an "island on which the crater is located".
Because the relative relationship between the two is actually like this-
As you can imagine, this little lake on the island is not a crater at all.
The winding ridges on both sides of the island are the real crater edges.
02 How much damage did this eruption cause?
Because the ash is too thick, the situation remains unclear despite several reconnaissance aircraft sent by Australia and New Zealand yesterday to observe.
But from the sporadic information from all sides, it can be seen that Tonga has been greatly affected.
For example, around the time of the second eruption, its capital city observed a tsunami as high as 1.2 meters.
Huge waves washed up the shore, flooded the roads and poured into homes.
Screenshot of the China News report
Although Tonga itself is located in a volcanic belt, it is not strange to see volcanic eruptions.
But the consecutive eruptions of the 14th and 15th may be the largest in 30 years after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.
The Prime Minister of New Zealand had contacted the envoy to Tonga the day before yesterday and had learned that a tsunami had struck the northern part of the Tonga capital and that a large number of ships and huge rocks had been washed up on the coast.
Although there were no large-scale casualties, roads and bridges were severely damaged.
Even more troublesome is volcanic ash. Because a large amount of volcanic ash obscured the sky, Tonga was already completely dark at 5 p.m.
"There was a thick layer of dust everywhere, as if it were a sight on the moon."
Subsequently, the sulfur dioxide may also bring secondary disasters such as acid rain.
Yesterday, the head of a Chinese company with employees stationed in the local area said that the most worrying thing at present is the follow-up water source and air pollution.
Last night, a Tongan diplomat said domestic communications had largely resumed, but external communications would not resume for at least a week.
And the subsequent effects of this incident may not be eliminated in the short term.
03 What other problems will occur in the future?
Large volcanic eruptions can easily lead to "disaster meetings".
Huge amounts of energy and matter are thrown to the surface, often with a global ripple effect.
The first is the tsunami caused by shock waves, which can bring the most immediate disaster to the coastal areas.
In particular, the scale of Tonga this time has even affected the entire Pacific Ocean basin.
At present, New Zealand and Japan have had a number of ships overturned and damaged, and some ports in California and Peru have been flooded.
Japan issued a tsunami warning on the 16th
Some California residents found that the sea at the gate rose a few feet in a matter of minutes and then fell rapidly.
Tsunami warnings have now been lifted in most countries.
But because the Tonga volcano still has the potential to erupt again, almost all pacific coastal countries are now trembling.
It is volcanic ash that may have a longer-term impact.
According to the analysis of @ Chinese meteorological enthusiasts, the volcanic ash smoke cloud did not drift from west to east along the tropospheric westerly wind belt after the eruption, but drifted to Australia in the west, indicating that it has entered the stratosphere.
It also means that volcanic ash can float for months before settling to the surface.
Such a large lump of "smoke" floating in the air, the most direct impact is first of all the aircraft flights.
In 2010, Iceland's Eyjafjalla Volcano had a massive eruption.
From the helicopter, you can see the ash gas column produced by the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjalla volcano in 2010 | wired
As a result, the volcanic ash could not be dissipated for more than a month, resulting in the near paralysis of European flights.
If the scale of the eruption is larger and the ash is produced, it will also bring about the "umbrella effect".
Prolonged sunlight is obscured, which can lead to lower temperatures.
Strictly speaking, it is not the volcanic ash itself that triggers the "umbrella effect", but the sulfur dioxide gas contained in it.
It forms sulfuric acid aerosols in the stratosphere and travels with the circulation around the globe.
This means that if enough sulfur dioxide is emitted, not only the surrounding countries are affected, but "a wave of gas for the world", everyone can not run away.
Just like the "summerless year" mentioned by many netizens yesterday, it was the abnormally low global temperature caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1816.
At that time, from China, Europe to the Americas, the entire northern hemisphere had a grain harvest failure, frost and other tragedies.
The above-mentioned eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which erupted 40 kilometers of gas column, caused the global average temperature to be 0.5 degrees colder than usual within two years.
Pinatubo's cloud mass "hand tearing typhoon" completely disorganizes its cloud system
However, for now, if there are no more large-scale eruptions in Tonga volcanoes, the consequences are still manageable.
Tonga itself is an island nation in the southern hemisphere far from the mainland, and the impact on various continents, especially the countries of the northern hemisphere, is relatively small.
And its crater itself is at the bottom of the sea, and the lethality will not be like the land volcano".
For example, the height of the 20-kilometer column was only half that of the Pinatubo volcano at that time.
Since the ejected material first passes through the seawater, a part of the gas will dissolve in the water and will not be dispersed into the atmosphere.
NASA satellite measurements show that the current sulphur dioxide released by Tonga's volcano is only 2% of Pinatubo.com.
Both the health damage caused by volcanic ash and the impact on the global climate are discounted compared to its "predecessors".
But it still reminds us not to look at these disasters with a cold eye.
Extreme weather is becoming more and more frequent, and this is also a common problem for human beings.
In the past few days, there has been a heart-wrenching news: a Guangzhou man working in Tonga has disappeared after the tsunami on the 15th.
Before he lost contact, his last WeChat message was sent to his wife, who transferred 3355 yuan to her, and also accompanied by a voice: "The volcano erupted, the tsunami is coming, I am going to the airport now." ”
Yesterday afternoon, his wife received a satellite phone call from the Chinese Embassy in Tonga.
The staff said that people had been contacted to confirm that they were safe and sound.
You see, disasters on the other side of the world, even if they are physically thousands of miles away from us—
But the fates of mankind are still closely linked in various ways.
Sources| CCTV News, Red Star News, Jimu News, China Meteorological Enthusiasts Official Micro, China Weather Official Micro, etc
Edited | Jessie