Observation of the Aerosol Plume From the 2022 Hunga Tonga—Hunga Ha'apai Eruption With SAGE III/ISS

Abstract

The Tonga eruption of 15 January 2022 has released a long-lived stratospheric plume of sulfate aerosols. More than 17 months after, we focus on the high quality data series of SAGE III (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment) on board the International Space Station (ISS) to determine the mean radius and size distribution of the aerosols and their total mass. The persisting volcanic aerosols—with a mode width of 1.25 and an effective radius of 0.4 μm—differ from the significantly smaller background aerosols and from those measured during recent stratospheric eruptions. The sulfuric acid mass between 50°S and 30°N is estimated to be very stable in spite of considerable redistribution in latitude at a value of 0.66 ± 0.1 Tg, corresponding to an initial sulfur dioxide emission of 0.44 Tg. Such properties are expected to facilitate the persistence of a climate warming due to the volcanic water vapor.