Powerful waves rippling through Earth's atmosphere after the eruption of the Tonga volcano are unlike anything seen before
Scientists are racing to understand a puzzling series of massive ripples in Earth’s atmosphere triggered by the eruption of the Tongan volcano at the weekend. Satellite data shows that the event — which some fear might have devastated the Pacific-island nation — provoked an unusual pattern of atmospheric gravity waves. Previous volcanic eruptions have not produced such a signal, leaving experts stumped.
They show dozens of concentric circles, each representing a fast-moving wave in the gases of the atmosphere, stretching for more than 16,000 kilometres. The waves reached from the ocean surface to the ionosphere, and researchers think that they probably passed around the globe several times. The up-and-down waves transfer energy and momentum through the atmosphere, and often show their effects in the way in which they cause high clouds to form in a series of ripples.
He and his co-workers suspect that a “great big, messy pile of hot gases” in the upper atmosphere might be what kicks the waves off. The hot gas is “going up high into the stratosphere and knocking the air around”, he says. The convection in the atmosphere seems to be “very complicated and bumpy, and it’s generating a whole family of things at the same time”, he says. “That is what we currently think is going on, but we’ve only been looking at it for a few hours.”
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