Tonga Eruption Blasted Unprecedented Amount of Water Into Stratosphere

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-
of-water-into-stratosphere

The huge amount of water vapor hurled into the atmosphere, as detected by
NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder, could end up temporarily warming Earth’s
surface.

When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a
tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the
globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also
blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere –
enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer
amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global
average temperature.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric
scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He
led a new study examining the amount of water vapor that the Tonga volcano
injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about
8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.

In the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Millán and his
colleagues estimate that the Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1
teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere
– equal to 10% of the water already present in that atmospheric layer.
That’s nearly four times the amount of water vapor that scientists
estimate the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines lofted into
the stratosphere.

Millán analyzed data from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument on
NASA’s Aura satellite, which measures atmospheric gases, including water
vapor and ozone. After the Tonga volcano erupted, the MLS team started
seeing water vapor readings that were off the charts. “We had to carefully
inspect all the measurements in the plume to make sure they were
trustworthy,” said Millán.

A Lasting Impression

Volcanic eruptions rarely inject much water into the stratosphere. In the
18 years that NASA has been taking measurements, only two other eruptions
– the 2008 Kasatochi event in Alaska and the 2015 Calbuco eruption in
Chile – sent appreciable amounts of water vapor to such high altitudes.
But those were mere blips compared to the Tonga event, and the water vapor
from both previous eruptions dissipated quickly. The excess water vapor
injected by the Tonga volcano, on the other hand, could remain in the
stratosphere for several years.

This extra water vapor could influence atmospheric chemistry, boosting
certain chemical reactions that could temporarily worsen depletion of the
ozone layer. It could also influence surface temperatures. Massive
volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount Pinatubo typically cool Earth’s
surface by ejecting gases, dust, and ash that reflect sunlight back into
space. In contrast, the Tonga volcano didn’t inject large amounts of
aerosols into the stratosphere, and the huge amounts of water vapor from
the eruption may have a small, temporary warming effect, since water vapor
traps heat. The effect would dissipate when the extra water vapor cycles
out of the stratosphere and would not be enough to noticeably exacerbate
climate change effects.

The sheer amount of water injected into the stratosphere was likely only
possible because the underwater volcano’s caldera – a basin-shaped
depression usually formed after magma erupts or drains from a shallow
chamber beneath the volcano – was at just the right depth in the ocean:
about 490 feet (150 meters) down. Any shallower, and there wouldn’t have
been enough seawater superheated by the erupting magma to account for the
stratospheric water vapor values Millán and his colleagues saw. Any
deeper, and the immense pressures in the ocean’s depths could have muted
the eruption.

The MLS instrument was well situated to detect this water vapor plume
because it observes natural microwave signals emitted from Earth’s
atmosphere. Measuring these signals enables MLS to “see” through obstacles
like ash clouds that can blind other instruments measuring water vapor in
the stratosphere. “MLS was the only instrument with dense enough coverage
to capture the water vapor plume as it happened, and the only one that
wasn’t affected by the ash that the volcano released,” said Millán.

The MLS instrument was designed and built by JPL, which is managed for
NASA by Caltech in Pasadena. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages
the Aura mission.

News Media Contact
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874

jane....@jpl.nasa.gov / andre...@jpl.nasa.gov

2022-112


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