The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Hydration of the Stratosphere
Abstract
Following the 15 January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption, several trace gases measured by the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) displayed anomalous stratospheric values. Trajectories and radiance simulations confirm that the H₂O, SO₂, and HCl enhancements were injected by the eruption. In comparison with those from previous eruptions, the SO₂ and HCl mass injections were unexceptional, although they reached higher altitudes. In contrast, the H₂O injection was unprecedented in both magnitude (far exceeding any previous values in the 17-year MLS record) and altitude (penetrating into the mesosphere). We estimate the mass of H₂O injected into the stratosphere to be 146 ± 5 Tg, or ∼10% of the stratospheric burden. It may take several years for the H₂O plume to dissipate. This eruption could impact climate not through surface cooling due to sulfate aerosols, but rather through surface warming due to the radiative forcing from the excess stratospheric H₂O.
Additional Information
© 2022 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. Issue Online: 01 July 2022; Version of Record online: 01 July 2022; Manuscript accepted: 02 June 2022; Manuscript revised: 31 May 2022; Manuscript received: 30 April 2022. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). GLM was supported by the JPL Microwave Limb Sounder team under JPL subcontract #1521127 to NWRA. We thank S. Khaykin for helpful discussions. The suggestions for improvements from the two anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. Data Availability Statement: The data sets used here are publicly available as follows. Aura MLS Level 2 data: https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?page=1&keywords=AURA%20MLS; Aura MLS Derived Meteorological Products: https://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/eos-aura-mls/dmp (registration required).Attached Files
Submitted - essoar.10511266.1.pdf
Supplemental Material - 2022gl099381-sup-0001-supporting_information_si-s01.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 114833
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20220520-388184000
- 80NM0018D0004
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- 1521127
- JPL
- Created
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2022-05-23Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-07-29Created from EPrint's last_modified field