Eruption of Hunga Tonga Volcano Will Not Cool Global Climate Temperatures, Study Finds

The Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption released a massive impact all over the southern regions of the Pacific Ocean last January. Even though the explosion produced large ash clouds high in the atmospheric planes, a new study suggests that volcanic activity will not result in a massive shift in the global climate.

The eruption shook the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, an uninhabited island located in the region of Polynesia.

Volcanic Eruptions and Cooler Climate

(Photo: Mary Lyn Fonua/AFP via Getty Images)
This view taken on January 17, 2015, from a boat at sea shows frigate birds flying on the thermals from the new vent as steam and gas rise from the eruption of a volcano, some 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the South Pacific nation Tonga's capital Nuku'alofa. The Tongan volcano has created a substantial new island since it began erupting in December, spewing out huge volumes of rock and dense ash that has killed nearby vegetation, officials said on January 16. The Lands and Natural Resources Ministry said the volcano was erupting from two vents, one on the uninhabited island of Hunga Ha'apai and the other underwater about 100 meters offshore

Volcanic eruptions tend to initiate a short-term cooling of the planet. Much like the January 15 event, recorded explosions might induce certain factors that can immediately change the normal climate status of the planet.

Experts determined the opposite of the natural volcanic impacts in a recent paper. The data contrasts the supposed outcome of the Pacific eruption, despite the Honga Tunga spewing volcanic materials that scaled over 40 kilometers of altitude.

The study backs up previous findings in which the estimates of the Hunga Tonga volcano's cooling effect would measure to just 0.004 and 0.01 degrees Celsius in northern and southern hemispheres, respectively. Some of the calculations in the past were even higher compared to what the authors found in their new study.

The cooling effect of volcanic eruptions on the climate has a rate that relies on the compounds materializing from the clouds of ash. Among these compounds is sulfur dioxide, a chemical known to form aerosol particles.

When it reaches the atmosphere, these particles block the waves coming from the sunlight, leading to a decrease in energy that enters our planet. One example of this phenomenon is the temperature decline of 0.6 degrees Celsius recorded two years after the 1991 Mount Pinatubo explosion in the Philippine archipelago.

However, Mount Pinatubo's ashes contained 50 times more than the sulfur dioxide observed from the recent Hunga Tonga eruption.

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Tonga Eruption Will Not Cool Earth's Climate

Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Atmospheric Physics expert and author of the study Tianjun Zhou said in a Space report that the explosion from the southern hemisphere had emissions that stayed in the circulation of the region and its tropics.

The expert continued, with a lower impact on the northern hemisphere, allowing the global cooling effect to become weaker than the previous eruptions of the northern and other tropical volcanoes.

The study's authors explained that the latest study serves as an initial assessment based on a novel modeling approach, which relied on the sulfate aerosols' altitude, volume, and displacement across the atmosphere.

The study was made possible through the help of 70 selected volcanic eruptions and their impacts on global climate temperature, all being consolidated into a new model. The study was published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, titled "Volcanoes and Climate: Sizing up the Impact of the Recent Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Volcanic Eruption from a Historical Perspective."