Exploring the Impact of the Tonga Volcano Eruption on Rising Summer Temperatures: Debunking the Myths

KOMPAS.com – The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption in January 2022 was one of the largest volcanic eruptions recorded in history.

The Tonga volcano erupted underwater with the force of 100 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. The explosion then sent millions of tons of water vapor into the atmosphere.

Several people have commented in recent weeks that the underwater volcano is to blame for rising summer temperatures, and cast doubt on climate change as the source of the problem.

So was the massive eruption of the Tonga Volcano responsible for this summer’s scorching extreme heat?

Also read: What’s Making 2023 So Hot?

The extreme heat is not due to Mount Tonga

Quoted from Live Science, Saturday (26/8/2023) Gloria Manney, senior research scientist at NorthWest Research Associates and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and Luis Millán, research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory revealed that this extreme heat was not due to an eruption. Tonga Volcano.

“Although El Niño has made global temperatures higher and the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruptions may impact some regions in a short time, the main cause is climate change,” they said.

So, why do some people think that the extreme heat is due to the eruption of Mount Tonga?

Large volcanic eruptions usually lower temperatures by releasing large amounts of sulfur dioxide, which forms sulfate aerosols that can reflect sunlight back into space and temporarily cool the Earth’s surface.

But the eruption of Mount Tonga had another effect because it happened underwater.

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“The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (volcano) eruption was a strange thing because besides causing the largest increase in stratospheric aerosols in decades, it also injected huge amounts of water vapor into the stratosphere,” Manney said.

Water vapor is a natural greenhouse gas that absorbs solar radiation and traps heat in the atmosphere.

Aerosols and water vapor have opposing effects on the climate system, but some studies have shown that, due to larger and more persistent plumes of water vapor, eruptions can have a temporary surface warming effect.

A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in January estimated that the eruption increased the moisture content of the stratosphere by about 10-15 percent, which is the largest increase scientists have ever documented.

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Using a model, they calculated that water vapor could increase global average temperatures by 0.035 degrees Celsius.

But Stuart Jenkins, a climate scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in England and the lead author of the January study said the effect volcanoes had on this year’s temperature extremes was quite small.

Geothermal temperature trends

The global warming trend occurred before the Tonga Volcano eruption.

Last July was the hottest month in the history of global temperatures, but according to NASA, July for the past 5 years has also been recorded as a hot month.

Millán said that more detailed models were needed to reveal how much impact the eruption had on global temperatures compared to the burning of fossil fuels and El Niño.

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“The record-breaking global temperatures last July are just a snapshot of what is likely to happen if we don’t take bolder and more ambitious climate action,” he said.

In May, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned that there was a 66 percent chance that the annual average global surface temperature would exceed the dangerous warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next five years.

According to NASA, if the temperature increases by 1.5 degrees Celsius, extreme heat waves will expand and the possibility of reduced water availability and drought.

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2023-08-28 01:00:00
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