January 15th Hunga Tonga- Hunga Ha'apai submarine Volcano eruption recorded on January 15th It was one of the biggest explosions ever. Created a shock wave that circled her six times around the Earth, sending a plume of ash and vapor into theatmosphere30 miles high.
Scientists have now calculated the amount of water vapor this eruption released into the atmosphere. That's more than an incredible 38 billion gallons of water, enough to fill 58,000 Olympic pools.
"I have never seen anything like it,"NASA atmospheric scientist Luis Millan of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.
Dr. Millán led anew studypublished in the journal Geophysical Research Letters to estimate the amount of water vapor injected into the atmosphere by the Tonga volcano. About 8 to 33 miles high, also called the stratosphere. The study used data from NASA's Aura satellite. The satellite measures air quality, ozone, and trace gases using the Microwave Limbsounder (MLS) instrument.
By using microwave frequencies, MLS instruments can survey vertical columns of the atmosphere and see through clouds, ash, or other material that obstructs visual observations.
The MLS was the only instrument with sufficient dense coverage to capture the water vapor plume it generated, and the only instrument not affected by the ash emitted by the volcano." He said Dr. Millán.
The study found that the amount of water released into the atmosphere by the eruption was equivalent to 10% of the water vapor already present in the stratosphere. This was his second largest volcanic eruption in the 20th century, with four times the amount of water vapor released into the atmosphere by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
Unlike the Pinatubo eruption and his 1883 Krakatoa eruption, the Tonga eruption is unlikely to cool the Earth's climate, according to a NASA blog. Tonga's eruption did not inject as much sunlight-blocking aerosols and ash into the atmosphere as previous eruptions, but large amounts of water vapor trapped more heat in the atmosphere, which could cause temporary warming.
Large amounts of water vapor can remain in the upper atmosphere for years, altering the chemistry of the upper atmosphere, including temporarily depleting the ozone layer.
The reason the Tonga eruption produced so much more water vapor than other large volcanic eruptions is due to the location of the volcano. Hunga Tonga - The Hunga Ha'apai caldera is 490 feet below sea level, the perfect depth for volcanic activity. According to NASA, it produces a lot of steam.
"Shallower than this would not have had enough ocean water superheated by the erupting magma," the blog said. Deeper than that, the immense pressure of the ocean depths may have dampened the eruption. ''
