[HN Gopher] Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai has almost disappeared
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Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai has almost disappeared
Author : fguerraz
Score : 76 points
Date : 2022-01-16 14:32 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| karlkatzke wrote:
| Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai had already almost disappeared before
| the eruption.
|
| A picture taken two hours before the widely publicized explosive
| detonation showed that the 2015 eruption products, which is
| really the north north west side of the much larger caldera that
| isn't even fully shown in this picture, had already disappeared.
| https://denvergazette.com/news/nation-world/a-planet-skysat-...
| pixl97 wrote:
| This youtube video posted yesterday does a good job of
| describing the geology of the area, and makes an accurate
| prediction that the volcano could be mostly gone.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B54HbfqDbK4
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fascinating. Even after the last eruption it was quickly
| colonized by plants and birds. The mud found on it in the last
| expedition must have been from the volcano!
|
| https://youtu.be/Hds1OBxVg4s?s=209
|
| Has footage from the island before it blew up!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This[0] is one of my favorite pics. It's an ISS image of one of
| the Kuril islands, experiencing a volcanic eruption.
|
| Good thing the islands are uninhabited (by humans), as those
| clouds at the feet of the main column are pyroclastic flows, and
| it is probably as close to Hell, down there, as you can get,
| without going on a tourist visa.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Riauw5UTnW8
| retrac wrote:
| And some image sequences of the Jan 13th Tonga eruption from
| the GOES West and Himiwari-8 satellites:
|
| https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/s3/2022-01/20220113_HungaTonga1....
|
| https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/s3/2022-01/20220113-HungaVolcano...
|
| (No idea why NOAA provided them as giant GIFs. Source:
| https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-
| er...)
| Rastonbury wrote:
| Did you see the pressure wave it caused in the atmosphere from
| satellite images? Seems like the island got obliterated by the
| eruption
| robin_reala wrote:
| The pressure waves were measurable globally. Here's some tweets
| earlier with data from London:
| https://twitter.com/russss/status/1482449707083390977
| Rastonbury wrote:
| Scott Manley on YouTube has a video with weather data in
| Japan and US and you can see the wave travel across the
| countries
| wdfx wrote:
| About 6 months ago I set up some little esp32 temp/pressure
| recorders in my home.
|
| Seeing this I've just connected the dots and realised I also
| recorded the same event.
|
| https://imgur.com/KAOPQxH
|
| This is in South East London.
| m0ngr31 wrote:
| I'm guessing that's Home Assistant?
| wdfx wrote:
| No it's a custom Grafana setup I use to monitor this and
| a few other things in my home.
| fguerraz wrote:
| That was quite a blast indeed...
| geraldyo wrote:
| Is this whole thing at all related to climate change? I know
| nothing about that field, just seems interesting timing of "once-
| in-a-lifetime" events
| skykooler wrote:
| Well, yes and no. It's not in any way caused by climate change,
| but previous large volcanic eruptions such as Krakatoa and
| Mount Tambora that eruptions of this scale can _cause_
| temporary climate change for a few months to a few years.
| ofou wrote:
| Not really sure about your first statement
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTdviIS_TAk
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Do you have something, more specific than a long now
| foundation video link, with which you propose that a
| ~1-3degC temperature increase the atmosphere produces
| _meaningful_ differences in volcanic eruptions, processes
| that are generally thought to result from processes driven
| in the mantle, athenosphere, and below? (Remember that the
| typical temperatures of these regions are around ~1000degC,
| and they are generally well-insulated by miles of crust.)
|
| like heck I'd listen to "something something ice sheet
| rebound" except this is Tonga and it's quite some distance
| away from any ice sheets
|
| don't make me watch the thing! this is your comment, you do
| the work and tell me what's meaningful in there and how
| it's connected
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Volcanoes contribute to climate change (rather than being
| caused by them), but mostly have a cooling effect. When they
| erupt to an extent that they inject sulfates into the
| stratosphere, these sulfates seed cloud nuclei and increase
| cloud cover around the planet that reduces the IR energy from
| the sun.
|
| Sometimes a single volcanic eruption can have a dramatic
| cooling effect on the planet, like Mount Tambora in 1816, which
| triggered an extremely cold summer in Europe and North America:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
| mlindner wrote:
| No it's not related to climate change. Please don't get into
| the habit of labeling everything related to climate change. The
| news media does it way too much. For example, climate change
| causes gradual changes, not sudden increases in weather
| behavior.
|
| In this case, this is geology which doesn't care at all what
| the climate is doing. It can affect the climate however.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Correct that volcanic activity is not affected by climate
| change, I correct to suggest that weather is not affected by
| climate change.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| This isn't really a "once in a lifetime" event; volcanoes erupt
| all the time and this one wasn't particularly huge. In fact,
| there are 46 currently erupting with an average of 20 active on
| any given day [1].
|
| [1] https://volcano.si.edu/gvp_currenteruptions.cfm
| jayknight wrote:
| How frequently does that kind of explosive eruption happen?
| This one sent a pressure wave around the planet. See
| https://twitter.com/burgwx/status/1482447133529686019
| wayoutthere wrote:
| A few times a year at least; this one was just more visivle
| than most because it happened just under the surface in an
| area of more or less open ocean, so there was nothing to
| deflect the shockwaves. It also started erupting in
| December so there were already satellites paying attention
| to it.
| pmayrgundter wrote:
| I heard an initial estimate (sorry, nothing solid yet)
| that it was VEI 4 or 5, so more like every 10 years.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Inde
| x https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/msh/comparisons.html
| carbocation wrote:
| > _Early data from Tonga 's violent volcanic eruption
| suggests it is the biggest blast since Mount Pinatubo in
| the Philippines 30 years ago, volcanologist Shane Cronin
| says._
|
| https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/459657/tonga-eruption-
| likel...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| _> It also started erupting in December so there were
| already satellites paying attention to it._
|
| All images I've seen are from satellites and/or
| constellations that watch the whole Earth or a fixed part
| of the Earth, none have been tasked to specifically watch
| this area because of the eruption.
| turminal wrote:
| No, at least not in any way we know about. I was caused by
| violent volcanic activity which is governed by forces from the
| earth's interior.
| geraldyo wrote:
| Good to know, thanks!
| vba616 wrote:
| There seem to be people asserting that removing the weight
| of melting ice is destabilizing the crust and contributing
| to volcanic events and earthquakes.
|
| Here is a link:
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/get-ready-for-
| mor...
|
| "A new study shows that even relatively small-scale
| climatic changes affect volcanic activity"
| GravitasFailure wrote:
| Definitely plausible if the eruption were in Iceland or
| Alaska, but Tonga? Seems a bit of a stretch.
| temp12913231 wrote:
| > Is this whole thing at all related to climate change? no, but
| in a couple years expect some guy to write a climate change
| article and show the before and after photos as proof...
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account for posting flamewar comments.
| That's not what HN is for, and it destroys what it is for.
|
| Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| hinkley wrote:
| Never thought I would ever anthropomorphize an actual volcano and
| yet here I am, feeling sad that he never found love.
|
| I have a dream I hope will come true
|
| That you're here with me and I'm here with you
|
| I wish that the Earth, sea, and the sky up above-a
|
| will send me someone to lava
| kzrdude wrote:
| How are people doing in Tonga? Is it mostly ok? I get the
| impression that we mostly don't know due to communication issues,
| so it could be quite bad.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| NZ defence plane is on the way to asses - apparently they
| haven't heard from 30+ islands outside of capital one
|
| You can follow them here
| https://mobile.twitter.com/NZDefenceForce
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(page generated 2022-01-16 23:02 UTC)