This looping video reveals an umbrella cloud generated by the underwater eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano on Jan. 15, 2022. The GOES-17 satellite captured the sequence of photos that also present crescent-formed shock waves and lightning strikes. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens the issue of GOES imagery courtesy of NOAA and NESDIS
The unparalleled quantity of water vapor hurled into the ambiance, as detected by NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder, may maybe perhaps maybe halt up warming Earth’s surface hasty.
On January 15, 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted, setting off a sonic express that circled the globe twice and unleashing a tsunami racing around the globe. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere. Basically, the unparalleled quantity of water vapor was as soon as so large, that it was as soon as ample to possess more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming swimming pools. The sheer quantity of water vapor can be ample to hasty bring collectively an sign on Earth’s global moderate temperature.
“We’ve by no methodology considered anything else tackle it,” mentioned Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He led a fresh investigation inspecting the quantity of water vapor that the Tonga volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the ambiance between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.
This satellite image reveals an intact Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai in April 2015, years earlier than an explosive underwater volcanic eruption obliterated many of the Polynesian island in January 2022. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, the issue of Landsat knowledge from the U.S. Geological Peek
Published in Geophysical Research Letters, the watch by Millán and his colleagues estimates that the Tonga eruption despatched an extra special 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere. That’s an quantity equal to 10% of the water already veil in that atmospheric layer. That’s honest about four times the quantity of water vapor that scientists estimate the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines lofted into the stratosphere.
“We’ve by no methodology considered anything else tackle it.” — Luis Millán
Millán analyzed knowledge from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument on NASA’s Air of mystery satellite, which measures atmospheric gases, including water vapor and ozone. After the Tonga volcano erupted, the MLS personnel began seeing water vapor readings that had been off the charts. “We had to carefully gape your total measurements in the plume to impact sure they had been devoted,” mentioned Millán.
A Lasting ImpressionVolcanic eruptions now not frequently inject noteworthy water into the stratosphere. In the 18 years that NASA has been taking measurements, handiest two other eruptions – the 2008 Kasatochi tournament in Alaska and the 2015 Calbuco eruption in Chile – despatched the truth is huge amounts of water vapor to such high altitudes. Nonetheless those had been mere blips compared to the Tonga tournament, and the water vapor from every old eruptions dissipated hasty. The surplus water vapor injected by the Tonga volcano, on the opposite hand, may maybe perhaps maybe dwell in the stratosphere for several years.
An image from January 16, 2022, reveals the ash plume from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption that came about the day earlier than. An astronaut took a photograph of the plume from the World Condominium Position. Credit: NASA
This extra water vapor may maybe perhaps maybe affect atmospheric chemistry, boosting sure chemical reactions that can maybe perhaps maybe hasty worsen the depletion of the ozone layer. It may perhaps maybe perhaps maybe also affect surface temperatures. Wide volcanic eruptions tackle Krakatoa and Mount Pinatubo on the total frosty Earth’s surface by ejecting gases, dirt, and ash that mirror sunlight succor into dwelling. In incompatibility, the Tonga volcano didn’t inject spruce amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere, and the substantial amounts of water vapor from the eruption may maybe perhaps maybe bring collectively a little, non permanent warming function, since water vapor traps heat. The function would dissipate when the additional water vapor cycles out of the stratosphere and wouldn’t be ample to noticeably exacerbate climate replace results.
The sheer quantity of water injected into the stratosphere was as soon as seemingly handiest attainable on account of the underwater volcano’s caldera – a basin-formed despair typically formed after magma erupts or drains from a shallow chamber beneath the volcano – was as soon as at real the coolest depth in the ocean: about 490 feet (150 meters) down. Any shallower, and there wouldn’t bring collectively been ample seawater superheated by the erupting magma to account for the stratospheric water vapor values Millán and his colleagues saw. Any deeper, and the giant pressures in the ocean’s depths may maybe perhaps maybe bring collectively muted the eruption.
The MLS instrument was as soon as properly positioned to detect this water vapor plume on account of it observes natural microwave signals emitted from Earth’s ambiance. Measuring these signals permits MLS to “glimpse” by draw of obstacles tackle ash clouds that can maybe perhaps blind other instruments measuring water vapor in the stratosphere. “MLS was as soon as the most effective instrument with dense ample protection to purchase the water vapor plume as it took dwelling, and the most effective one who wasn’t littered with the ash that the volcano released,” mentioned Millán.
Reference: “The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Hydration of the Stratosphere” by L. Millán, M. L. Santee, A. Lambert, N. J. Livesey, F. Werner, M. J. Schwartz, H. C. Pumphrey, G. L. Manney, Y. Wang, H. Su, L. Wu, W. G. Read and L. Froidevaux, 1 July 2022, Geophysical Research Letters.
DOI: 10.1029/2022GL099381
The MLS instrument was as soon as designed and built by JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena. NASA’s Goddard Condominium Flight Center manages the Air of mystery mission.