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How big was the Tonga eruption?

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221–230 of 269 posts

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#221
post #180

And it still wasn't big enough to put sufficient sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere to have a noticeable cooling effect. Too bad :( https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60088413

Too bad? It would be extremely cool for one summer, ruining crops and causing famines and then back to hotter summers from next year onwards. How does that help anyone?

You are describing an extreme cooling effect. If the Tonga eruption produced merely a mild cooling effect, it could contribute to the energy balance. Buying another year of frozen permafrost sounds ok to me.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#223
post #214

I posted a visualization of the shock wave as a submission, but I"ll repost it here. This is a satellite measurement of integrated atmospheric water vapor (IIUC), so changes in the density of air change the integrated measurement, such that you can see the shock wave travel around half the globe. https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/images/2022/01/22... (it take a few seconds to load, but I believe this is one…

I wonder if the eruption could be heard on the exact opposite side of the globe, where the waves converged? This would have been somewhere around 20.570000, 4.620000, in Guezzam, Algeria, according to: https://www.antipodesmap.com

I was wondering the same thing. One factor might be the variation in propagation speed, which is visible for example due to winds near low pressure systems.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it difficult to believe that even a massive eruption could literally push sea levels up or down in the surrounding area (waves /= sea level). Volcanoes are massive, but the energy to move cubic miles of water, water many hundreds or thousands of miles away, is at different level. Hurricanes can move water like that, but they do so with orders of magnitude greater energy (tens of thousands of nukes).

US tsunami monitoring has a record. https://www.tsunami.gov/previous.events/?p=03-19-09-Tonga

That's from 2009. I can't figure out how to navigate the site so as to find the 2022 event.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#225
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...

My back yard weather station picked up the shockwave here in the bay area: https://twitter.com/DavidCWG/status/1482451910154014720 I had no idea that was even possible. Crazy stuff.

May I kindly ask the make and model of your weather station please?

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#226
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US is more dense though (going by www.worldometers.info). I think these explanations “why we can’t have good things” are too simplistic. Ignore rail and fiber for a second, and look at commuter air travel for example: European market is much more competitive and prices are much lower than for comparable flights in the US.

I think you should double check, that sounds reversed. US and Europe have similar area but Europe has quite a lot more people.

Yeah, Europe is way, way more dense.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+density+USA...

United States | 36 people/km^2

Europe | 104 people/km^2

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#227
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...

I live on the beach on the East coast of Australia. We had a marine tsunami warning. We were a few floors up so I wasn't really worried about myself. About 12ish hours after the initial eruption I thought that anything that was going to happened had all passed by hours ago and I was talking with friends online. Randomly I started hearing this white noise kind of sound (it sounded like the bubbling water of a kettle w…

Transport this event and yourself back to the bronze age and you could start a new religion with the other people who saw this.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#228

I posted a visualization of the shock wave as a submission, but I"ll repost it here. This is a satellite measurement of integrated atmospheric water vapor (IIUC), so changes in the density of air change the integrated measurement, such that you can see the shock wave travel around half the globe. https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/images/2022/01/22... (it take a few seconds to load, but I believe this is one…

No post body was provided.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#230
post #214

I posted a visualization of the shock wave as a submission, but I"ll repost it here. This is a satellite measurement of integrated atmospheric water vapor (IIUC), so changes in the density of air change the integrated measurement, such that you can see the shock wave travel around half the globe. https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/images/2022/01/22... (it take a few seconds to load, but I believe this is one…

I wonder if the eruption could be heard on the exact opposite side of the globe, where the waves converged? This would have been somewhere around 20.570000, 4.620000, in Guezzam, Algeria, according to: https://www.antipodesmap.com

Not sure if anyone heard it but I know it registered very clearly on barometers in London, so it's not out of the question.
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