The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano erupted in January.
In January, one of the strongest volcanic eruptions in recent history occurred in the Pacific Ocean. (Image credit: NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)
The intense eruption of the underwater Tonga volcano in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year produced a considerable explosion, with huge pressure waves rippling up in the atmosphere and across the globe. One study showed that this wave was the fastest observed in the atmosphere, reaching speeds of 720 miles (1,158 kilometers) per hour.
"It's a really huge explosion, and it's truly unique in terms of the data that science has observed." Lead author of the study, Corwin Wright, a Fellow at the Royal Society University at the Centre for Space, Atmospheric and Marine Sciences at the University of Bath, UK, said in a statement.
Atmospheric waves caused by volcanoes have reached unprecedented speeds and are "very close to theoretical limits," he said.
Wright and his colleagues published their findings thursday (June 30) in the journal Nature.
The volcano — known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, or Hunga — is located about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, in a group of volcanoes known as the Tonga-Kemadeke Arc. On January 15, Hunga erupted and sent towering gases and particles into the middle layer, the third layer of atmosphere above Earth's surface.
A variety of ground-based and spaceborne monitoring systems documented its eruption. Subsequently, scientists around the world immediately began sifting through the valuable things in this rich data.
A team of researchers found that the atmospheric waves produced by The Hunga Volcano were comparable to those produced by the 1883 eruption of The Krakatoa Volcano.
The Krakatoa Volcano is located in Indonesia, and the 1883 eruption was the most destructive Hu climbing eruption ever recorded. The atmospheric waves produced by these two eruptions reached the same intensity and traveled around the Earth exactly four times in one direction and three times in the other directions. Other investigation teams have found that the eruption of Tonga volcanoes also produced small but fast-spreading meteorological tsunamis (meteorological tsunamis due to disturbances in atmospheric pressure caused by abnormal ocean tide levels).
At a point where the ground exceeds the atmospheric boundary (i.e., the Carman Line) 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the spherical surface, shock waves caused by volcanic eruptions produce air currents of up to 450 miles (720 kilometers) per hour.
Now, using similar satellite data and ground-based observations, Wright and his co-authors have confirmed that the Hhonga eruption was one of the most explosive volcanic events in modern history. Their findings suggest that the atmospheric waves produced by volcanoes can circle the Earth at least six times at speeds of up to 1,050 feet (320 meters) per second.
"This eruption is an amazing natural experiment," Wright said. The data we collect will help us understand the atmosphere and improve weather and climate models. ”
Related knowledge
On December 20, 2021, a volcanic eruption occurred in the Hungga Tonga-HungaHa'a faction, an undersea volcano in the Tonga Archipelago of the South Pacific. About four weeks later, on January 15, 2022, the eruption reached a very powerful climax. Located 65 km (40 mi) north of Tonga Tabu, the main island of Tonga, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'a Pai is also part of the highly active Tonga-Kmadeke Islands volcanic arc that extends from northeast-east New Zealand to Fiji in the subduction zone. In the volcanic eruption index scale, the eruption scale is at least VEI-5.
Volcanic eruptions triggered tsunamis in Tonga, Fiji, American Samoa, Vanuatu and the Pacific Rim, as well as devastating tsunamis in New Zealand, Japan, the United States, the Russian Far East, Chile and Peru. In a tsunami wave of up to 20 meters (66 feet), at least four people were killed in Tonga, along with some injured or possibly missing people. A huge 2-meter (6-foot-7-inch) wave hit the Peruvian coast, drowning two people.
It was the largest since the eruption of Pinatubo in 1991 and the most intense since the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. NASA determined that the eruption was "hundreds of times more powerful" than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The eruption was the largest explosion recorded by modern instruments in the atmosphere, much larger than any volcanic event or nuclear bomb test in the 20th century. It is thought that in recent centuries, only the 1883 Krakatoa eruption has been comparable to the atmospheric disturbances it produced.
BY：Nicoletta Lanese
FY：Astronomical volunteer team
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