{"id":300184,"date":"2024-02-07T09:52:12","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T08:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=300184"},"modified":"2024-02-07T09:52:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T08:52:15","slug":"hunga-tonga-hunga-eruption-sent-enough-water-vapor-into-the-stratosphere-to-cause-a-rapid-change-in-chemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=300184","title":{"rendered":"Hunga Tonga-Hunga eruption sent enough water vapor into the stratosphere to cause a rapid change in chemistry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>From Watts Up With That<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By NOAA RESEARCH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha\u2019apai volcano on January 15, 2022, produced the largest underwater explosion ever recorded by modern scientific instruments, blasting an enormous amount of water and volcanic gases higher than any other eruption in the satellite era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two research papers have now detailed how that water vapor rapidly affected the Earth\u2019s stratosphere between 10 and 31 miles above the surface, causing an unexpectedly large loss of ozone and an unexpectedly rapid formation of aerosols. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUp until now, sulfur has been the primary focus of research on eruptions,\u201d  said Elizabeth Asher, a CIRES<\/a> research scientist now working at NOAA\u2019s Global Monitoring Laboratory<\/a>. Asher led one of the two recent studies while at the NOAA\u2019s Chemical Sciences Laboratory<\/a>. \u201cStudying Hunga Tonga showed that other gases, like water vapor, can have a profound impact on these outcomes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunga Tonga offered a unique opportunity to observe the immediate atmospheric impacts of a massive volcanic eruption. When news broke of the eruption, Karen Rosenlof, a senior climate scientist at the Chemical Sciences Laboratory, immediately contacted colleagues on the island of La R\u00e9union, which sits in the Indian Ocean 8,000 miles away from Hunga-Tonga but lay directly in the path of the dispersing eruptive plume. Only days later, Asher and several colleagues from CIRES, the University of Houston, and St. Edward\u2019s University were on flights bound for La R\u00e9union carrying miniaturized atmospheric instruments in their baggage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rapid deployment of balloon-borne observations at R\u00e9union Island<\/a> confirmed the unprecedented amount of water vapor \u2013 an estimated 150 million tons \u2013 that was injected into the stratosphere by the eruption. The balloon payloads also carried instruments to measure ozone and sulfur dioxide, in addition to carrying a POPS (portable optical particle spectrometer)<\/a> particle instrument to determine the abundance of injected aerosol, which was used to calculate the rate at which new aerosol particles were formed downwind of the volcano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rapid response observations by NOAA and partner scientists provided insights that would have been impossible if the measurements were a month later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur measurements showed that stratospheric ozone concentrations decreased rapidly \u2013 by as much as 30% in air with the highest water vapor concentrations \u2013 in the immediate wake of the eruption,\u201d said Stephanie Evan, a scientist from the Laboratoire de l\u2019Atmosph\u00e8re et des Cyclones in France and lead author of the other recent study, published in the journal\u00a0Science<\/em><\/a>. Evan and colleagues continued to measure ozone concentrations depleted by around 5% across the Indian and Pacific oceans two weeks following the eruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This graphic depicts how the ejection of water vapor from Hunga-Tonga volcano accelerated ozone depletion in the stratosphere. Credit: Chelsea Thompson\/Chemical Sciences Laboratory<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Scientists have long understood fundamentally that chlorine-containing molecules react with sulfate aerosols containing water vapor in the stratosphere converting them to an active form that destroys ozone. According to Rosenlof, however, these were the first measurements that captured the effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Evan examined the impacts to ozone, Asher focused her attention on the particle measurements collected by the POPS. Volcanic aerosols are profoundly important for global climate, as demonstrated by the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption that cooled the planet by 0.5\u00b0C (0.9\u00b0F) for nearly two years. They can also act as surfaces upon which rapid chemical reactions can take place, leading to the destruction of ozone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By combining data from the balloon measurements with global satellite data, Asher and colleagues found that a large, dense layer of aerosol particles formed in the stratosphere faster than had ever been seen before. These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe tremendous amount of water vapor that this volcano sent to the stratosphere led to a rapid production of sulfate aerosol particles that we were able to observe within days of the eruption,\u201d explained Asher.  Under normal atmospheric conditions, sulfate aerosols form from sulfur dioxide on a timescale of about a month. In this case, rapid measurements provided critical clues for determining the chemical and microphysical processes required to cause these effects \u2013 clues that would have vanished if the measurements had been taken a month later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such measurements are critical for furthering scientific understanding of aerosol processes in the stratosphere, which remain one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate predictions. Volcanic eruptions in particular are of significant interest because they are considered natural analogs for stratospheric aerosol injection \u2014 a proposed method of climate intervention that would spread reflective particles like sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere to intercept solar radiation and cool the Earth\u2019s surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, contact Chelsea Thompson, Chemical Sciences Laboratory:\u00a0<\/em>chelsea.thompson@noaa.gov<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha\u2019apai volcano on January 15, 2022, produced the largest underwater explosion ever recorded by modern scientific instruments, blasting an enormous amount of water and volcanic gases higher than any other eruption in the satellite era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":300190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha\u2019apai volcano on January 15, 2022, produced the largest underwater explosion ever recorded by modern scientific instruments, blasting an enormous amount of water and volcanic gases higher than any other eruption in ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691820646,691823831,691818397,691826781,691826780,691819657],"class_list":{"0":"post-300184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-earths-stratosphere","9":"tag-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-volcano","10":"tag-noaa","11":"tag-sulfate-aerosols","12":"tag-underwater-explosion","13":"tag-water-vapor","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/0121222_cg_-tonga-hunga-volcano_feat.jpg?fit=1440%2C811&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1g5G","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":365515,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=365515","url_meta":{"origin":300184,"position":0},"title":"EXCLUSIVE: Sensational Findings Point to Hunga Tonga Eruption as Prime Suspect Behind Recent Temperature Spike","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"09\/02\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In January 2022, a massive underwater volcano called Hunga Tonga suddenly erupted and shot so much water into the upper atmosphere that levels in the stratosphere rose suddenly by at least 10%. It was a genuine one in 100, even 200-year event and was reasonably expected to produce temporary weather\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"climate alarmism\"","block_context":{"text":"climate alarmism","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-alarmism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-07-185254.png?fit=1200%2C565&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-07-185254.png?fit=1200%2C565&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-07-185254.png?fit=1200%2C565&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-07-185254.png?fit=1200%2C565&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-07-185254.png?fit=1200%2C565&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":313414,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=313414","url_meta":{"origin":300184,"position":1},"title":"Hunga Tonga Volcano is \u201cMost Likely\u201d Cause of Recent Warm Temperatures","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/03\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The climate events of 2022-24 have been \u201ctruly extraordinary\u201d, notes Dr. Javier Vin\u00f3s writing in Dr. Judith Curry\u2019s\u00a0online blog. 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