Phys.org January 25, 2023
On 15 January 2022, the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) eruption injected 146 MtH2O and 0.42 MtSO2 into the stratosphere. This large water vapour perturbation means that HTHH will probably increase. An international team of researchers (UK, Austria) estimated the radiative response to the HTHH eruption and derived the increased risk that the global mean surface temperature anomaly shortly exceeds 1.5 °C following the eruption. They showed that HTHH has a tangible impact of the chance of imminent 1.5 °C exceedance (increasing the chance of at least one of the next 5 years exceeding 1.5 °C by 7%), but the level of climate policy ambition, particularly the mitigation of short-lived climate pollutants, dominates the 1.5 °C exceedance outlook over decadal timescales…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Impact of the 2022 HTHH eruption on projected global average surface temperature anomaly between 2015 and 2035. Credit: Nature Climate Change (2023)Â