Enlightenment of the Recent Explosive Eruption of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai in Tonga

Abstract

Eruptions of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai render a unique opportunity to explore the mechanism, environmental and climatic effects. Although the size of blast occurred on 15 January was large, the ashes emitted were small, and the global surface air temperature is likely to decrease by about 0.03–0.13°C in the next few years. The dominant reason for this disproportionateness is that vast majority of SO₂ and particles were removed before escaping out of the shallow water and soaring up into the upper atmosphere (∼30 km). The explosive eruptions had devastated this Pacific Island nation, and all things in the Tongatapu Island were covered by up to 2 cm thick ash layer. One puzzling phenomenon is that a sequence of low-frequency waves rippled globally in the atmosphere probably due to the continuous oscillations of gas bubbles shells at the magma-air interface. Furthermore, the atmospheric waves had regenerated the sea waves far-away from the volcano and exerted certain influence on ocean circulation and marine ecology, and thus the short-term explosive eruption may play far-reaching impacts. Given the series problems Tonga had faced after the blast, one realistic suggestion is that adequate preparations should be made in the emergency security and post-disaster reconstruction.