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How big was the Tonga eruption?

graphics.reuters.com

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Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#81

Post by neom »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #44
herpderperator wrote: post #20

Did the the ocean influence the ease of expansion of the explosion? Or hinder it? We are comparing an underwater explosion to one on land, and I'm wondering if it's directly comparable.

From what I've read it seems that the ocean exacerbated the explosion: the hot magma caused water to vaporize and created a steam explosion. I've read about a 70x volume expansion and that the top altitude of the plume was steam. On the other hand, the ocean might have captured some of the ash (?)

I wonder if all that steam condensing would also help contain the ash. If it was that much steam I guess as it cooled it "rained"?

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#82

Post by goodcanadian »

rosstex wrote: post #65

I would like to see, "MEDIA COVERAGE OF Tonga eruption compared as if it had happened in various Nations". Because apparently no one knows anybody who lives in Tonga with a camera, but damn that high tide at the Berkeley marina was crazy!!

The submarine cable connecting Tonga to the world was severed. While satellite connections exist, apparently the ash cloud interfered with that as well. It has been extremely difficult/expensive to get any pictures out of Tonga.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#83

Post by markdown »

samcheng wrote: post #54
Zash wrote: post #25

What I'm curious about is whether this was equivalent to, or larger than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa Also whether it will turn the sky red for months.

We have had really beautiful sunsets here in Northern California for the past week. Maybe related? (We also have a winter wildfire in Big Sur that could be contributing.)

Nah, the ash cloud went westwards towards Australia.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#84

Post by Tuna-Fish »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #77
dragonwriter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Krakatoa is estimated at 200 MT energy, this was estimated as 6 MT.

That is absolutely mind-boggling.

Mount Tambora is estimated to have been about 33GT. That one messed up weather globally for two years.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#87

Post by belter »

RowanH wrote: post #79

Heard it go bang, 2600km away, echoing through the hills around our place at the top of the South Island of New Zealand. That's pretty staggering to think about it. Then to see other peoples Home Assistants around the world pick up the change in pressure on opposite sides of the planet. Mental, just mental...

Talk about long distance effects....

"Tonga volcanic eruption shockwave reached the Netherlands"

https://nltimes.nl/2022/01/16/tonga-volcanic-eruption-shockw...

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#88

Post by Robotbeat »

dragonwriter wrote: post #67
Zash wrote: post #25

What I'm curious about is whether this was equivalent to, or larger than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa Also whether it will turn the sky red for months.

Krakatoa is estimated at 200 MT energy, this was estimated as 6 MT.

The 6-10MT estimate is really a lower bound based on the amount of material moved from the island. A more reliable estimate is based on the overpressure, which was significantly larger than the Tsar Bomba (also exploded over an island) which was 50MT. https://text.npr.org/1074438703

That said, the amount of SO2 was fairly low, so the climate impact not likely to be large.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#89

Post by bt1a »

lelandbatey wrote: post #47
NikolaNovak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW: * I think visuals are great for illumination overall, some people not withstanding :) * I think they also used semi-transparent shadow

Yes, they did use transparent shadows. You can tell because the images are not GIF's, they're actually a sequence of PNG images overlayed atop other PNG images. There's the base satellite image of the area, then the frames-of-explosion-with-transparency overlayed atop them. You can confirm this by right clicking on the image and choosing "open image in new tab", which will (usually) open this final frame in a new tab…

I tried to save one of the "gifs" to share with a friend and was quite upset that I found myself with a png. Interesting technique. Do you think this was done to have better quality animated images? GIF compression isn't amazing (relative to WebM at least)

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#90

Post by zo1 »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #75
mytailorisrich wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read it seems that the ocean exacerbated the explosion: the hot magma caused water to vaporize and created a steam explosion. I've read about a 70x volume expansion and that the top altitude of the plume was steam. On the other hand, the ocean might have captured some of the ash (?)

I'm curious if this would cause a noticeable change in the pH of those waters, and if that could be a good basis for estimating how much ash was captured.

I wonder how many tonnes of fish got destroyed, cooked, or otherwise thrown many kilometers into the air.
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