Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Hydration of the Stratosphere

Millán, Luis; Santee, M. L.; Lambert, A.; Livesey, N. J.; Werner, Frank; Schwartz, M.; Pumphrey, Hugh C.; Manney, G. L.; Wang, Yuan; Su, Hui; Wu, Longtao; Read, W. G.; Froidevaux, L.

doi:10.1002/essoar.10511266.1

Cited by 22 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…The next EPIC exposure at 20: 34 UTC shows a ~200 km westward drift of the SO 2 cloud in the 108 min elapsed between the measurements (Figure 6), indicating a wind speed of ~31 m/s. Such high wind speeds were only measured at altitudes above 30 km in the Pago sounding (Supplementary Figure S2), consistent with other Frontiers in Earth Science frontiersin.org constraints on the injection altitude of the January 15 HTHH SO 2 cloud (e.g., Carr et al, 2022;Gupta et al, 2022;Millán et al, 2022).…”

Section: The 15 January 2022 Eruptionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Out of the blue: Volcanic SO2 emissions during the 2021–2022 eruptions of Hunga Tonga—Hunga Ha’apai (Tonga)

et al. 2022

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Most volcanism on Earth is submarine, but volcanic gas emissions by submarine eruptions are rarely observed and hence largely unquantified. On 15 January 2022 a submarine eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) volcano (Tonga) generated an explosion of historic magnitude, and was preceded by ∼1 month of Surtseyan eruptive activity and two precursory explosive eruptions. We present an analysis of ultraviolet (UV) satellite measurements of volcanic sulfur dioxide (SO2) between December 2021 and the climactic 15 January 2022 eruption, comprising an unprecedented record of Surtseyan eruptive emissions. UV measurements from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite, the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) on Suomi-NPP, the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on ESA’s Sentinel-5P, and the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) are combined to yield a consistent multi-sensor record of eruptive degassing. We estimate SO2 emissions during the eruption’s key phases: the initial 19 December 2021 eruption (∼0.01 Tg SO2); continuous SO2 emissions from 20 December 2021—early January 2022 (∼0.12 Tg SO2); the 13 January 2022 stratospheric eruption (0.06 Tg SO2); and the paroxysmal 15 January 2022 eruption (∼0.4–0.5 Tg SO2); yielding a total SO2 emission of ∼0.6–0.7 Tg SO2 for the eruptive episode. We interpret the vigorous SO2 emissions observed prior to the January 2022 eruptions, which were significantly higher than measured in the 2009 and 2014 HTHH eruptions, as strong evidence for a rejuvenated magmatic system. High cadence DSCOVR/EPIC SO2 imagery permits the first UV-based analysis of umbrella cloud spreading and volume flux in the 13 January 2022 eruption, and also tracks early dispersion of the stratospheric SO2 cloud injected on January 15. The ∼0.4–0.5 Tg SO2 discharged by the paroxysmal 15 January 2022 HTHH eruption is low relative to other eruptions of similar magnitude, and a review of other submarine eruptions in the satellite era indicates that modest SO2 yields may be characteristic of submarine volcanism, with the emissions and atmospheric impacts likely dominated by water vapor. The origin of the low SO2 loading awaits further investigation but scrubbing of SO2 in the water-rich eruption plumes and rapid conversion to sulfate aerosol are plausible, given the exceptional water emission by the 15 January 2022 HTHH eruption.

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Section: The 15 January 2022 Eruptionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Out of the blue: Volcanic SO2 emissions during the 2021–2022 eruptions of Hunga Tonga—Hunga Ha’apai (Tonga)

et al. 2022

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“…Assuming a total amount of stratospheric water vapor of 10 15 g ( 15 ), this eruption may have increased stratospheric water vapor by at least 5% on a global average. This estimate is a lower bound and less than what has been reported by satellite observations ( 16 ). Three soundings in the western part of the domain only touched the upper layer and did not map its full vertical extent.…”

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confidence: 69%

“…The effort by the World Meteorological Organization to encourage National Hydro-Meteorological Services to share their radiosonde observations in high resolution provided the ability to study this event in detail. Owing to the unusually large amounts of water vapor ( 16 ) and a possible interference by volcanic aerosol with the remote-sensing observations from satellites, the plume during the first few days after the eruption could only be quantified by the radiosonde network. If volcanic eruptions inject large amounts of water vapor into the stratosphere after the end of life of the current satellite instruments monitoring stratospheric water vapor, balloon-borne instruments may be the only tool to study these events.…”

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confidence: 99%

Water vapor injection into the stratosphere by Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai

Vömel

Evan

Tully

2022

Science

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Large volcanic eruptions, although rare events, can influence the chemistry and the dynamics of the stratosphere for several years after the eruption. Here we show that the eruption of the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai on 15 January 2022 injected at least 50 teragrams of water vapor directly into the stratosphere. This event raised the amount of water vapor in the developing stratospheric plume by several orders of magnitude and possibly increased the amount of global stratospheric water vapor by more than 5%. This extraordinary eruption may have initiated an atmospheric response different from that of previous well-studied large volcanic eruptions.

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“…The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) onboard NASA's AURA satellite provides along track vertical profiles of water vapour mixing ratio (Lambert et al, 2015). We use the version 4 without accounting the quality flag as in Millan et al (2022). As the line-of-sight is perpendicular to the heliosynchronous orbit, the measured component at low and mid-latitudes is essentially the zonal wind.…”

Section: A14 Mlsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the stratosphere, increasing instantaneously its overall water vapour content by ∼10% (Millan et al, 2022). Quite surprisingly, the first satellite data gathered after the event reported a stratospheric SO 2 injection of only 0.5 Tg, on par with much smaller and less explosive eruptions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution and dynamics of the Hunga Tonga plume in the stratosphere

Legras

Duchamp

Sellitto

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. We use a combination of space-borne instruments (CALIOP, OMPS-LP, IASI, MLS, ALADIN, GEOs) to study the unprecedented stratospheric plume after the Hunga Tonga eruption of 15 January 2022. The plume was formed of two initial clouds at 30 and 28 km mostly composed of sub-micronic sulphate particles without ashes, washed-out within the first hours. The large amount of water vapour injected led to a fast conversion of SO2 to sulphates and the fast descent of the plume over the first three weeks. While SO2 returned to background levels by the end of January, the sulphate plume persisted until June, mainly confined between 20° N and 35° S due to the zonal symmetry of the summer stratospheric circulation at 24–25 km. As they grew through hydration and coagulation, the sedimenting sulphate particles separated from the ascending moisture entrained in the Brewer-Dobson circulation. IASI-derived sulphate aerosol optical depths show that the aerosol plume was not simply diluted and dispersed passively but rather organized in concentrated patches. ALADIN-AEOLUS winds suggest that those structures, generated by shear-induced instabilities, are associated with vorticity anomalies. They likely enhance the duration and impacts of the plume.

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Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Hydration of the Stratosphere

Cited by 22 publications

References 44 publications

Out of the blue: Volcanic SO2 emissions during the 2021–2022 eruptions of Hunga Tonga—Hunga Ha’apai (Tonga)

Out of the blue: Volcanic SO2 emissions during the 2021–2022 eruptions of Hunga Tonga—Hunga Ha’apai (Tonga)

Water vapor injection into the stratosphere by Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai

The evolution and dynamics of the Hunga Tonga plume in the stratosphere

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