Physical Sciences Division
Published December 14, 2022 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Global perturbation of stratospheric water and aerosol burden by Hunga eruption

Creators

  • 1. Sorbonne University
  • 2. Institute of Energy and Climate Research
  • 3. Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
  • 4. NASA
  • 5. University of Saskatchewan
  • 6. University of La Réunion
  • 7. Institut Pierre Simon Laplace
  • 8. Meteorological Research Institute
  • 9. NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory
  • 10. National Institute for Environmental Studies
  • 11. Leibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik an der Universität Rostock
  • 12. University of Chicago

Description

The eruption of the submarine Hunga volcano in January 2022 was associated with a powerful blast that injected volcanic material to altitudes up to 58 km. From a combination of various types of satellite and ground-based observations supported by transport modeling, we show evidence for an unprecedented increase in the global stratospheric water mass by 13% relative to climatological levels, and a 5-fold increase of stratospheric aerosol load, the highest in the last three decades. Owing to the extreme injection altitude, the volcanic plume circumnavigated the Earth in only 1 week and dispersed nearly pole-to-pole in three months. The unique nature and magnitude of the global stratospheric perturbation by the Hunga eruption ranks it among the most remarkable climatic events in the modern observation era, with a range of potential long-lasting repercussions for stratospheric composition and climate.

Notes

Due to the large number of authors, only the first 20 and the University of Chicago authors are included on the above author list. Please download the article for the complete list of authors.

Data availability

MLS water vapour data are available at https://acdisc.gesdisc.eosdis.nasa.gov/data/Aura_MLS_Level2/ML2T.005/2022/. CALIOP data v3.41 are available at: https://doi.org/10.5067/CALIOP/CALIPSO/CAL_LID_L1-VALSTAGE1-V3-41. OMPS V2.0 data is available at https://snpp-omps.gesdisc.eosdis.nasa.gov/data/SNPP_OMPS_Level2/OMPS_NPP_LP_L2_AER_DAILY.2/2022/; COSMIC-2 data are available at https://data.cosmic.ucar.edu/gnss-ro/cosmic2/nrt/level2/; OMPS-LP V2.1 data is available at https://avdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/satellite/Suomi_NPP/L2/LP-L2-AER-45km/LP-L2-AER-DAILY/2022/; OMPS-LP tomographic retrieval data are available at ftp://odin-osiris.usask.ca/ with login/password osirislevel2user/hugin; SAGE III data at https://doi.org/10.5067/ISS/SAGEIII/SOLAR_BINARY_L2-V5.2; Aeolus data are available at https://aeolus-ds.eo.esa.int/oads/access/collection/Level_2A_aerosol_cloud_optical_products/; ACE-FTS data are available upon registration at https://databace.scisat.ca/l2signup.php; GloSSAC data are available at https://asdc.larc.nasa.gov/project/GloSSAC/GloSSAC_2.1; Eruptive column cloud top height data are available at https://clouds.larc.nasa.gov/prod/OT/15January2022_tonga_CTH.tar; Meteorological radiosounding data are available at http://www.weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/bufrraob.shtml; Ground-based lidar data are available at https://ndacc.larc.nasa.gov/; ECMWF data are available at https://doi.org/10.21957/open-data.

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1038/s43247-022-00652-x
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:14564

Funding

Agence Nationale de la Recherche
21-CE01-0028-01
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
21-CE01- 335 0007-01
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
21-CE01-0016-01
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
15-CE04-0003- 336 01

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Physical Sciences Division
Department(s)
Geophysical Sciences