The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’Apai Water Vapor Wandering within the Atmosphere: A 2-Year Journey

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, a submarine volcano in the South Pacific, reached an eruption climax on 15 January 2022. The blast sent a plume of ash well into the stratosphere, triggered atmospheric waves that propagated around the world multiple times, and caused the largest enhancement in stratospheric aerosol loading in decades. Ten hours after the violent eruption, the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) measured enhanced values of water vapor at altitudes as high as 53 km - above the stratopause. The mass of the water vapor injected was equivalent to around 10% of the amount of water vapor typically residing in the stratosphere. This excess moisture is expected to linger for several years. In this presentation, we use MLS data to investigate the 2-year evolution of the water vapor plume. Unlike previous strong eruptions, this event may not cool the surface due to sulfate aerosols, but rather it could potentially warm the surface due to the radiative forcing from the excess stratospheric water vapor.

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References

Millán L., Santee M. L., Lambert A., Livesey N. J., Werner F., Schwartz M. J., Pumphrey H. C., Manney G. L., Wang Y., Su H., Wu L., Read W. G., and Froidevaux L. (2022). The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Hydration of the Stratosphere. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2022GL099381. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL099381