On January 15 2022, the uninhabited volcanic island
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai erupted violently, creating
worldwide shockwaves, sonic booms, tsunamis and powerful
winds all while blanketing surrounding islands and two
centimeters of ash. It was a fatal eruption, and its impact
on nearby communities was further compounded by the
disruption caused to emergency services. NASA has been
following the Pacific Islands unusual evolution for years.
Using historical observations and satellite data of the
January eruption, scientists have shed a new light on why
this explosion is so unique and how such a small island is
making such a huge impact across the planet.
It gave us a window into a rapid paced life history of an island
that we can compare to hundreds of other islands in the oceans
over time. And these islands are sensitive indicators for the
activities of climate environmental change, and we can
project them forward even to other planets. So what an
opportunity
geologic record suggests that while the volcano may have
produced massive explosive eruptions in the past, eruption
of this magnitude wasn't expected so soon.
This was what we call a volcanic explosivity index six eruption,
nothing like it's it's Krakataua in the 19th century. And so what
happened was this beautiful little island 100 meters tall,
growing forming, by the nature of the way volcanoes and in
water interact, was explosively changed forever. And literally,
the entire base of the volcano fell hundreds of meters in to a
shallow magma reservoir of liquid rock chamber, literally
under the ocean, and then allowed the explosive
interaction of a massive Pacific Ocean seawater with this hot
rock 1300 degrees Kelvin. That's super hot, hotter than your
oven. And that explosion with the pressure move the water, the
rock, the small amounts of ash that were part of building the
island, all the way into the atmosphere and triggered a large
tsunami, a 15 meter high super wave that traveled out hundreds
of miles, buried some local islands as part of the Tonga
archipelago, but allowed us to see the power of mother nature's
volcanoes. When water and liquid rock come together to shape our
planet.
NASA and ESA satellites clocked wind speeds up to 450 miles per
hour, just hours after the eruption in showed material
rising up to 36 miles, the highest volcanic plume ever
measured. Within two weeks, the main plume of volcanic materials
circled the entire globe injecting dust particles into
the stratosphere that remain for upwards of a year. NASA also
found that the volcano injected a tremendous amount of water
vapor into the Earth's stratosphere. The increase of
water vapor which traps heat could modify atmospheric
chemistry and have a warming effect on the Earth's surface.
So outside of its sheer magnitude, what makes this
eruption so unique? Well, it's really a matter of our ability
to see it. At the end of 2021, the islands volcanic activity
started picking up small underwater eruptions began to
reshape the islands landscape expanding the island. These
shallow water events are classified as cert saying
eruptions were hot magma interacts explosively with
water. In other words, we've been able to see the birth of
the island happen in ways we haven't been able to before. And
with modern satellite technology, we're also able to
see the end of the islands lifecycle in new detail, as we
did with the January eruption.
This has happened in Earth's history in famous places like
Yellowstone Taupo New Zealand, Krakatoa. And now in the island
nation of Tonga, it's a we have an opportunity 21st century
techniques, laser altimeters like ICESat, two satellite
techniques that can see its scales of submitter put those
together and tell a story of the birth and death of this island.
NASA's vantage point of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai could even
be used as a means to study other planets in our solar
system, specifically, the role that volcanic islands play in
water planets like Mars and Venus.
We live on an ocean planet. And so these kinds of eruptions are
part of our history, how we got here, as we evolved ourselves in
the context of our planet. And we want to take the lessons that
we learn as we go forward as we continue to watch what's next in
this exciting volcano, and apply it forward to other worlds like
Mars and Venus that may have harbored surface waters as
oceans or seas and understand them in the context of our
Earth.
Using geostationary satellites and observed data, NASA
scientists hope to learn from the continuous evolution of this
special volcano.
The question is Will those come again on Hunga Tonga and then
explode again? We don't know. So we need to use what we saw from
this eruption in 22. To train ourselves for what to be able to
predict. And so this is our chance to learn and then to
apply it to the other ocean worlds nearby that we really
hunger to study.