Published:
19 feb 2022 08:08 GMT
“The intensity of this event far exceeds that of any storm cloud I have ever studied,” said Kristopher Bedka, NASA atmospheric scientist.
Scientists at NASA’s Langley Research Center recently published a report in which they assure that the column of ash from the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which occurred on January 15 in Tonga, rose 58 kilometers at its highest point and reached the mesosphere, the third layer of the atmosphere. In this way, it became the tallest volcanic eruption column ever captured by satellites.
The researchers analyzed data from NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-17 (GOES-17) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Himawari-8, which operate in geostationary orbit and “were in a unique position” to observe the eruption.
“The intensity of this event far exceeds that of any storm cloud I have ever studied,” said Kristopher Bedka, a NASA atmospheric scientist who specializes in the study of extreme storms. “We are fortunate that our latest generation of geostationary satellites have seen it so well and we can use this data in innovative ways to document its evolution,” he added.
From the space agency they point out that, before the eruption in Tonga, the largest known volcanic column in the “satellite era” came from Mount Pinatubo, which spewed ash and gas up to 35 kilometers over the Philippines in 1991.
“When the volcanic material reaches so high into the stratosphere, where the winds are not so strong, the volcanic ash, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and water vapor can be transported throughout the Earth,” explained Konstantin Khlopenkov, NASA Langley team scientist.
In fact, in just two weeks the main column of volcanic material ejected by Tonga went around the world, according to satellite data.
For his part, Ghassan Taha, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, pointed out that the plume’s aerosols have continued in the stratosphere for more than a month and could remain there for a year or more.
While volcanic emissions can affect local and global climate, Taha noted that it currently appears unlikely that the Tonga volcano plume would generate significant climate effects because it was low in sulfur dioxide, a gas that causes so-called “volcanic winter.” .