NASA figured out that the eruption was “numerous times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”
New research study by an international group of researchers from 17 nations consisting of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researcher Keehoon Kim shows that, based on air pressure waves recorded by global barometers, the Hunga explosion was similar to the 1883 Krakatoa eruption in size. The research study was released previously this month in the journal Science.
The eruption from an immersed vent provided volcanic ash and gas mostly into the stratosphere. Eruption episodes consisting of reasonably low-energy subsurface eruptions in 2009 and 2014– 2015 had developed a tephra cone that linked the recognized islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Haapai on the northwestern part of the volcano. These subsurface eruptions transitioned into violent, spontaneous eruptions from December 19, 2021, as part of the most current episode.
“This difference is presumably because, for an offered energy release, the long-duration climactic eruption excites longer-period pressure disruptions than the near-instantaneous nuclear reaction. Hunga signals have peak-to-peak pressures comparable to those produced by the biggest historical atmospheric nuclear test (55 mt) however the dominant eruption signal periods are around 4 times longer than those of the nuclear surge.”
This looping video reveals a series of GOES-17 satellite images that captured an umbrella cloud produced by the underwater eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano on January 15, 2022. Crescent-shaped bow shock waves and numerous lighting strikes are likewise visible. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens utilizing GOES images thanks to NOAA and NESDIS
The January 2022 eruption of the Hunga volcano in Tonga was the largest volcanic eruption in the 21st century, and the biggest taped given that the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
The climatic wave information shows that the eruption propagated for 4 passages around the Earth over six days. NASA figured out that the eruption was “numerous times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”
The eruption started in December 2021 on Hunga Tonga– Hunga Haapai, a submarine volcano in the Tongan island chain in the southern Pacific Ocean (submarine volcanoes are undersea vents or cracks in the Earths surface area from which lava can appear). The last eruption in January caused tsunamis in Tonga, Fiji, American Samoa, Vanuatu, and along the Pacific rim, consisting of destructive tsunamis in New Zealand, Japan, the United States, the Russian Far East, Chile, and Peru.
A NASA satellite caught the explosive eruption of Hunga Tonga– Hunga Haapai in the South Pacific. Credit: Image by Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory, using GOES-17 images courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service
The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa began May 20, 1883, and peaked on the late early morning of Aug. 27, 1883, when more than 70% of the island of Krakatoa and its surrounding island chain were damaged as it collapsed into a caldera. The eruption killed more than 36,000 individuals, making it one of the most disastrous volcanic eruptions in human history.
The brand-new research study indicates that the Hunga volcano produced an explosion in the atmosphere of a size that has actually not been recorded in the modern geophysical record. The eruption from an immersed vent provided volcanic ash and gas mostly into the stratosphere.
Red-and-blue pattern around the Hunga volcano is a time photo image from a weather condition satellite revealing the climatic disruption developed by the Lamb wave. The bottom image shows two months of Hunga activity.
Hunga is a largely submerged volcano located ~ 65 km (~ 40 miles) to the north-northwest of Tonga. Eruption episodes consisting of reasonably low-energy subsurface eruptions in 2009 and 2014– 2015 had actually developed a tephra cone that linked the established islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Haapai on the northwestern part of the volcano. These subsurface eruptions transitioned into violent, spontaneous eruptions from December 19, 2021, as part of the most current episode.
The climactic January 15, 2022, eruption produced a broad variety of climatic waves observed internationally by numerous ground-based and spaceborne instrumentation systems and weather satellites.
Kim specifically checked out the Lamb waves– acoustic-gravity waves (AGW) propagating along the Earths surface– with group velocities near the mean sound speed of the lower environment. They also are connected with the largest atmospheric surges from nuclear tests and volcanic eruptions and have durations on the order of numerous to numerous minutes.
The Hunga eruption image is from the GOES-17 satellite of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Credit: NOAA
Measurements of Lamb wave peak-to-peak pressure amplitudes as a function of distance showed that the air pressure pulse created by the Hunga event is similar to that of the 1883 Krakatoa eruption. The Hunga signal amplitudes are over an order of magnitude larger than those produced by the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.
Throughout the 1950s to1960s atmospheric nuclear testing era, theoretical and empirical relationships were generated relating AGW periods and amplitudes to explosive yield.
” We find that such relationships are inapplicable to the signals produced by Hunga, as they lead to unphysically big equivalent yields,” Kim stated. “This difference is presumably because, for a given energy release, the long-duration climactic eruption excites longer-period pressure disturbances than the near-instantaneous nuclear response. Hunga signals have peak-to-peak pressures comparable to those produced by the largest historical atmospheric nuclear test (55 mt) however the dominant eruption signal durations are roughly 4 times longer than those of the nuclear explosion.”
For more on this research study, see Hunga Volcano Eruption Created an Atmospheric Pulse That Caused an Unusual Tsunami-Like Disturbance.
Reference: “Atmospheric waves and international seismoacoustic observations of the January 2022 Hunga eruption, Tonga” by Robin S. Matoza, David Fee, Jelle D. Assink, Alexandra M. Iezzi, David N. Green, Keehoon Kim, Liam Toney, Thomas Lecocq, Siddharth Krishnamoorthy, Jean-Marie Lalande, Kiwamu Nishida, Kent L. Gee, Matthew M. Haney, Hugo D. Ortiz, Quentin Brissaud, Léo Martire, Lucie Rolland, Panagiotis Vergados, Alexandra Nippress, Junghyun Park, Shahar Shani-Kadmiel, Alex Witsil, Stephen Arrowsmith, Corentin Caudron, Shingo Watada, Anna B. Perttu, Benoit Taisne, Pierrick Mialle, Alexis Le Pichon, Julien Vergoz, Patrick Hupe, Philip S. Blom, Roger Waxler, Silvio De Angelis, Jonathan B. Snively, Adam T. Ringler, Robert E. Anthony, Arthur D. Jolly, Geoff Kilgour, Gil Averbuch, Maurizio Ripepe, Mie Ichihara, Alejandra Arciniega-Ceballos, Elvira Astafyeva, Lars Ceranna, Sandrine Cevuard, Il-Young Che, Rodrigo De Negri, Carl W. Ebeling, Läslo G. Evers, Luis E. Franco-Marin, Thomas B. Gabrielson, Katrin Hafner, R. Giles Harrison, Attila Komjathy, Giorgio Lacanna, John Lyons, Kenneth A. Macpherson, Emanuele Marchetti, Kathleen F. McKee, Robert J. Mellors, Gerardo Mendo-Pérez, T. Dylan Mikesell, Edhah Munaibari, Mayra Oyola-Merced, Iseul Park, Christoph Pilger, Cristina Ramos, Mario C. Ruiz, Roberto Sabatini, Hans F. Schwaiger, Dorianne Tailpied, Carrick Talmadge, Jérôme Vidot, Jeremy Webster and David C. Wilson, 12 May 2022, Science.DOI: 10.1126/ science.abo7063.
Other partners include University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Alaska; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; AWE; Royal Observatory of Belgium; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Université de Toulouse; University of Tokyo; Brigham Young University; U.S. Geological Survey; NORSAR, Kjeller, Norway; Université Côte dAzur; Southern Methodist University; Laboratoire G-Time; Nanyang Technological University; Massey University, Palmerston North; Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation; CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297, France; BGR (Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources), Germany; Los Alamos National Laboratory; University of Mississippi; University of Liverpool; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Wairakei Research Centre; University of Florence; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Université de Paris, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris; Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department; Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Volcanological Observatory of the Southern Andes, National Geology and Mining Service (OVDAS, Sernageomin); Penn State University; Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology; University of Reading; NASA Goddard Space Flight; Norwegian Geotechnical Institute; and Instituto Geofísico, Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador.
The LLNL part of the work was moneyed by the National Nuclear Security Administrations Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development.