Volcanic eruption triggers mysterious waves in the atmosphere: researchers have "never seen anything like it"
Created: 01/24/2022, 13:20
By: Patrick Huljina
The volcanic eruption off Tonga left a trail of destruction in the South Seas islands.
Researchers discovered mysterious ripples in the atmosphere as a result of the eruption.
Nuku'alofa - The eruption of the undersea volcano Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai on January 15 was one of the strongest in decades, according to experts.
The deafening bang could be heard thousands of miles away.
The ash cloud was about 20 kilometers high.
According to the government of Tonga, the eruption triggered a tsunami up to 15 meters high, which caused destruction on the South Seas islands.
Communication with the islands broke down and continues to be "an acute challenge" and only partially possible.
At least three people died.
Volcanic eruption off Tonga: Waves in the atmosphere - "never seen before"
The pressure wave caused by the volcanic eruption off Tonga was measurable worldwide. Mysterious waves also appeared in the atmosphere after the eruption. They were discovered using images taken by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) mounted on NASA's Aqua research satellite. Experts said previous volcanic eruptions had not produced such waves.
"It's really unique.
We've never seen anything like this in the data," Lars Hoffmann told the journal
Nature
.
He is an atmospheric scientist at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
The images therefore show dozens of concentric circles.
Each of them represents a fast-moving wave that spans more than 10,000 miles.
Researchers suspect that the waves have traveled around the earth several times and reached from the sea surface to the ionosphere.
The eruption of the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai was the strongest in decades, according to experts.
© AAP Image/Tonga Meteorological Services/dpa
The instrument used to take the pictures has been in operation for 20 years.
"We have never seen such beautiful concentric wave patterns," Hoffmann continued.
The researchers suspect that the hot gases rising quickly as a result of the volcanic eruption could have caused the waves to have this shape.
Tonga Volcano Eruption: Impact on Weather?
Expert gives the all-clear
Compared to other volcanic eruptions, Tonga's happened very quickly. "The event appears to have been over in minutes, but it was explosive and it's that momentum that likely set off some powerful gravitational waves," Scott Osprey, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, told
Nature
. The expert explained shortly after the outbreak that one had to observe the effects on the weather. The gravitational waves could disrupt wind direction in the tropics and also affect the weather in Europe, Osprey suspected.
So far, however, no direct effects on the weather in Europe have been identified.
Andreas Friedrich from the German Weather Service (DWD) also gave the first all-clear.
"Neither the large amounts of ash in the atmosphere nor the shock waves are expected to have any noticeable effects on the weather and climate in Germany," he
said
.
That was different when the Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines erupted in 1991.
At that time, the average surface temperature of the earth cooled by around half a degree for more than a year.
In Europe, a volcanic eruption on La Palma in autumn 2021 caused major damage.
There are also volcanoes in Germany.
However, the last eruption in the Eifel was around 13,000 years ago.
(ph)
