A STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE EXPLOSIVE WAVES LAUNCHED BY THE TONGA SUPER-VOLCANO ON JANUARY 15, 2022

Abstract

The eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano (briefly known as the Tonga volcano), which was the largest explosion recorded by modern instrumentation, attained a maximum on January 15, 2022. Only the Krakatoa eruption of August 26-27, 1883, could have rivaled the atmospheric disturbance produced. The initial volcanic plume rose to 58 kilometers, the greatest height ever reported. The Tonga volcano created a chain of effects in all subsystems of the Earth — atmosphere — ionosphere — magnetosphere system, which requires a more detailed analysis. The purpose of this paper is the statistical study of the main parameters of the wave generated in the air by the explosion of the Tonga super-volcano on January 15, 2022. The statistical study of the parameters of the explosive wave launched by the Tonga super-volcano has established the following. The time delay of the arrival of the wave increases with increasing distance between the volcano and the observatory taking measurements. The speed of propagation for the explosive wave remains virtually unalterable in the range of up to 136.5 Mm. Different techniques for estimating the speed yield the values of 313…315 m/s. At a particular distance between the volcano and the observatory taking measurements, the amplitude of the explosive wave is observed to fluctuate wildly (by a factor of 2 or greater), which is dependent on the orientation of the propagation path and on the state of tropospheric weather along the propagation path. The radiated wave front has been established to be well approximated by a cylindrical wave. This fact, together with the speed of propagation, suggests that the explosive wave made 4-fold travel around the Earth as a Lamb wave of the Earth’s atmosphere.