The eruption of a volcano in Tonga in January 2022 has been confirmed as the largest eruption ever recorded in the atmosphere by modern equipment.

from any volcanic event of the 20th century, and even after World War II. It was much larger than any atomic bomb test conducted after World War II.

The assessment is presented in two academic papers published in the journal Science, which reviewed all data.

In recent history, only the eruption of Krakatoa volcano in 1883 is likely to rival the atmospheric disturbance produced. This catastrophic event in Indonesia is believed to have killed more than 30,000 people.

Fortunately, this year’s January 15 eruption of the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH), located in the South Pacific, resulted in very few deaths, although it also produced large tsunamis.

“Tonga was a truly global event, just like Krakatoa, but now we have all these geophysical observation systems and they’ve recorded something truly unprecedented in modern data.” , in the USA, who is the lead author of one of the articles .

Scientists now have access to an extraordinary array of ground and space instruments, including atmospheric pressure sensors, seismographs, hydrophones, and a fleet of satellites that monitor Earth across the entire light spectrum.

The massive eruption that followed several weeks of seamount activity in Tonga produced various types of atmospheric pressure waves that spread over large distances.

In the audible frequency range, people 10,000 km away in Alaska reported hearing repetitive explosions.

The global network of detectors created to monitor compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty received the infrared signal.

Infrasound has frequencies just below what humans can hear.

Network data showed that the eruption of the Tonga volcano produced an atmospheric pressure wave similar to the largest nuclear eruption of all time. The Tsar Bomb, detonated by the Soviets in 1961, lasted four times as long, however.

The articles delve into the disturbances caused by Lamb waves, named after the early 20th century mathematician Horace Lamb.

These are energetic waves in the air that propagate at the speed of sound along a directed path across the planet’s surface. They also do not fall apart, that is, they retain their shape when moving and therefore appear for a long time.

Lamb-wave impulses produced by the Tongan eruption have been seen to have circled the Earth at least four times.

In the United Kingdom, about 16,500 km from Tonga, these blows began to come on the night of the 15th, about 14 hours after the explosion on the other side of the planet.

They lifted the clouds over England.

“Back then, we had a laser ceilometer (a device used to determine the height of clouds) looking at the base of the cloud, and the wave distorted as it passed through the cloud,” atmospheric physicist Giles Harrison recalls. University of Reading. , UK and co-author of one of the articles.

“If you wanted proof that the atmosphere is remarkably interconnected, here it is. And what happens on one side of the planet can travel at the speed of sound to the other side.”

Where the waves of the lamb meet the waves of the ocean, were they able to create tsunamis? not only in the Pacific Ocean, but also in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean.

Scientists are still investigating the occurrence of nearby tsunamis that hit the coasts of the Tonga archipelago.

Some were undoubtedly created by the volcano’s pressure waves pushing the water surface, but research is ongoing to determine if the collapse of part of the volcano also contributed significantly.

This will be evident in the seafloor mapping projects, the results of which are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.