Science Daily June 23, 2023 Standard climate projections, as in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report, assume that explosive volcanic activity over 2015–2100 are of the same level as the 1850–2014 period. Researchers in the UK used the latest ice-core and satellite records to design stochastic eruption scenarios, to show that there is a 95% probability that explosive eruptions could emit more sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere over 2015–2100 than current standard climate projections (i.e., ScenarioMIP). Their simulations using the UK Earth System Model with interactive stratospheric aerosols showed that for a median future eruption scenario, the […]
Tag Archives: Volcanoes
Tongan Eruption’s 11 Hours of Lightning Fury Shattered Records
Science Alert June 22, 2023 Using a combination of satellite- and ground-based sensors a team of researchers in the US (USGS (Vancouver), industry, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NASA (Huntsville, AL), NASA, VA) investigated the rate of volcanic lightning (>2,600 flashes min−1) and what it revealed about the dynamics of the submarine eruption. In map view, lightning locations form radially expanding rings. They showed that the initial lightning ring was co-located with an internal gravity wave traveling >80 m s−1 in the stratospheric umbrella cloud. Buoyant oscillations of the plume’s overshooting top generated the gravity waves, which enhanced turbulent particle interactions […]
Eruption of Tonga underwater volcano found to disrupt satellite signals halfway around the world
Phys.org May 22, 2023 Equatorial plasma bubbles which impact satellite-based communications was observed in the Asia-Pacific region after the eruption of the Tonga volcano on January 15, 2022. Researchers in Japan used satellite and ground-based ionospheric observations to demonstrate that an air pressure wave triggered by the Tonga volcanic eruption could cause the emergence of an equatorial plasma bubble. The most prominent observation result showed a sudden increase of electron density and height of the ionosphere several ten minutes to hours before the initial arrival of the air pressure wave in the lower atmosphere. They also found that the propagation […]
New drone technology improves ability to forecast volcanic eruptions
Science Daily October 30, 2020 An international team of researchers (UK, Italy, Costa Rica, Sweden, Germany, USA – Michigan Tech. University, University of New Mexico, Canada, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand) has shown that aerial measurements of volcanic gases using unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) transform our ability to measure and monitor plumes remotely and to constrain global volatile fluxes from volcanoes. They combined multi-scale measurements from ground-based remote sensing, long-range aerial sampling, and satellites to construct comprehensive gas fluxes emitted by previously uncharacterized volcano Manam in Papua New Guinea. Their data emphasize the need to account for time averaging of […]
Volcanic ash may have a bigger impact on the climate than we thought
Science Daily September 11, 2020 After the Mt. Kelut eruption in 2014 on the island of Java, stratospheric ash-rich aerosols were observed for months. A team of researchers in the US (University of Colorado, NOAA, industry) shows that the persistence of super-micron ash is consistent with a density near 0.5 g cm−3, close to pumice. Ash-rich particles dominate the volcanic cloud optical properties for the first 60 days. They found that the initial SO2 lifetime is determined by SO2 uptake on ash, rather than by reaction with OH as commonly assumed. About 43% more volcanic sulfur is removed from the stratosphere in […]