Tonga Volcano

I continue to be amazed at the power of this explosion and the complete lack of coverage of the impact that this volcano is having on the weather patterns around the world. Perhaps it isn't totally understood or is it willful ignorance or ??? The explosion placed more water vapor int he upper atmosphere than any event ever recorded or modeled in the history of human record keeping. It is now projected that the original tsunami from this event was nearly as tall as the empire state building

Tonga volcano sent tons of water into the stratosphere, which could warm Earth : NPR

The violent eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano injected an unprecedented amount of water directly into the stratosphere — and the vapor will stay there for years, likely affecting the Earth's climate patterns, NASA scientists say.

The massive amount of water vapor is roughly 10% of the normal amount of vapor found in the stratosphere, equaling more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

"We've never seen anything like it," said atmospheric scientist Luis Millán, who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Millán led a study of the water the volcano sent into the sky; the team's research was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The volcano sent vapor and gases to a record height
The Jan. 15 eruption came from a volcano that's more than 12 miles wide, with a caldera sitting roughly 500 feet below sea level. One day earlier, Tongan officials reported the volcano was in a continuous eruption, sending a 3-mile-wide plume of steam and ash into the sky. Then the big blast came, sending ash, gases and vapor as high as 35 miles — a record in the satellite era — into the atmosphere.

The Tonga eruption may have spawned a tsunami 90 meters tall | Science News

The massive Tonga eruption generated a set of planet-circling tsunamis that may have started out as a single mound of water roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty.

What’s more, the explosive eruption triggered an immense atmospheric shock wave that spawned a second set of especially fast-moving tsunamis, a rare phenomenon that can complicate early warnings for these oft-destructive waves, researchers report in the October Ocean Engineering.

As the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai undersea volcano erupted in the South Pacific in January, it displaced a large volume of water upward, says Mohammad Heidarzadeh, a civil engineer at the University of Bath in England (SN: 1/21/22). The water in that colossal mound later “ran downhill,” as fluids tend to do, to generate the initial set of tsunamis.

 

more from the article on how the injection of water vapor interrupted a cycle so repetitive that it is known as the heartbeat of the atmospheric water pattern

The normal mechanism by which water rises into the stratosphere is so reliable that researchers refer to it as a sort of tape recorder, marking annual temperature cycles through alternating bands of dry and moist air rising from the tropics.

middle of the dry period in that seasonal cycle — but then the Tongan volcano erupted in the South Pacific Ocean, suddenly injecting a huge amount of water high in the atmosphere.

"By short-circuiting the pathway through the cold point, [Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai] has disrupted this 'heartbeat' signal" in the planet's normal atmospheric water pattern, the researchers said.

 

this will have opposite effect. normal volcano injects ash and dust which reflects light. increase inw ater vapor will trap heat

EarthSky | New record: Tonga volcano biggest of 21st century

Tonga was as big as Krakatoa
The volcanic blast that destroyed the uninhabited island of Hunga Tonga Ha’apai on January 15, 2022, is now officially the largest explosive eruption of the 21st century so far. And it was the largest since the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines. The size of the Tonga explosion makes it the largest ever recorded by modern sensor technology. Measurements of the pressure wave the blast created – which traveled around the world four times over a six-day period – was equivalent to the 1883 eruption of the infamous Krakatoa.

Biggest boom ever recorded
The explosion created an event that has never been seen before in recorded history. Tonga blew ejecta well into the upper atmosphere, to the edge of space. It created a cloud that covered an area approximately half the size of France.

 

correction, you are going to be a MAGA pub, a peculiar, specific subspecies with a unique ability to refuse to acknowledge anything that they don't want to believe to be true.

 

no idea, not technically savvy, just a simple parrot that read that in one of the articles I couldn't find to quote

 

I thought the same thing but the consensus in what I have read indicated that the water vapor would remain in the upper atmosphere for years.

 

i got nuttin. One would think that the weather geeks would be all over this story.

I also wonder if the increased water vapor would increase drag on spaceships during reentry and require a better heatshield

 

I knew about Hawaii and Yellowstone. I hiked out years and years ago and watch the lava flow into the ocean on the big island. There is a subsea vent east of the big island flowing and building another island. The slow shifting of the crust is why Kauai is the oldest and Hawaii the youngest. There is a show out there about what would happen if and when Yellowstone were to go off again. Cataclysmic level destruction and ice age