Meteotsunamis in Japan associated with the Tonga Eruption in January 2022

Abstract

Large-amplitude meteotsunamis were observed in many areas in Japan, following the arrival of barometric Lamb waves emitted by an underwater volcanic eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai in January 2022. We modeled the power spectra of the tidal level data obtained from 12 tide stations of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, based on a single transfer function which converts the barometric pressure pulse spectra into the meteotsunami spectra. The pressure pulse spectra are obtained from the ensemble average of ~1500 Soratena weather sensors of Weathernews Inc. distributed over Japan. The observed meteotsunami spectra can be characterized by the enhanced seiche eigenmodes at each station excited by the mesoscale pressure pulse, which contributes for accumulating the necessary knowledge to understand the potential dangers in various different areas over Japan.

Response of the underground environment of the KAGRA observatory against the air-pressure disturbance from the Tonga volcano eruption on January 15th, 2022

“…The Lamb waves of the Earth's atmosphere are observed around 11:30 UTC and the atmospheric gravity wave at milli-Hz order is observed for a long time. This is consistent with other reports in Japan [12][13][14]. The small transient disturbances in the higher frequency bands that appeared before the arrival of the air-pressure wave signal are understood that be caused by human activities like opening/closing doors in the building.…”

“…The impulsive shock wave caused by the volcanic eruption turned into long-period air-pressure waves and were observed worldwide. These waves also reached Japan, traveling longer than 8,000 km away from the Tonga volcano over the Pacific Ocean, and were observed as disturbances of the air-pressure [12][13][14]. These signals from the volcanic eruption were observed by the environmental sensors of KAGRA, not only outside the tunnel but also inside the underground facility.…”

Detection of Different Properties of Ionospheric Perturbations in the Vicinity of the Korean Peninsula After the Hunga‐Tonga Volcanic Eruption on 15 January 2022

“…The coincident occurrence of atmospheric and ionospheric perturbations indicates the instantaneous ionospheric response to atmospheric perturbations. One might suggest that these atmospheric and ionospheric perturbations were associated with tsunamis, but tsunamis were detected around Japan after 15 UT (Kataoka et al., 2022).…”

Tonga volcanic eruption and tsunami, January 2022: globally the most significant opportunity to observe an explosive and tsunamigenic submarine eruption since AD 1883 Krakatau

“…The first atmospheric gravity waves were observed across the entire planet within a few hours, and some possessed sufficient energy to circle the planet multiple times (Yuen et al 2022). A barometric pressure jump of approximately 2 hPa was recorded globally (Burt 2022): for example at 07:30 UTC in Sydney, Australia (Risk Frontiers 2022b) and 11:00 UTC in Japan (Kataoka et al 2022), i.e. 3½ h and 7 h after the first large eruption, respectively.…”