Birdnow's Aviary

August 04, 2022

More Climate Stuff

Dana Mathewson

Here's an interesting article, though I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion.

The violent eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano on Jan. 15, 2022, injected an unprecedented amount of water directly into the stratosphere - enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

"Weâ€™ve never seen anything like it," said Luis MillÃ¡n, an atmospheric scientist who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

When the volcano erupted, seawater came into direct contact with erupting lava and was superheated, creating "explosive steam."

NASA scientists say that the vapor will stay for years, likely affecting the Earth's global average temperature. Normally the vapor takes around 2-3 years to dissipate, but the water from the Jan. 15 eruption could take 5-10 years to evaporate.

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haâ€™apai "may be the first volcanic eruption observed to impact climate not through surface cooling caused by volcanic sulfate aerosols, but rather through surface warming,"MillÃ¡n hypothesized in a paper.

Really?

MillÃ¡n led a study examining the amount of water vapor that the volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earthâ€™s surface.

MillÃ¡nand his colleagues' found that the Tonga volcano sent around 146 teragram (1 teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into the Earth's stratosphere. The amount of water launched in the stratosphere is equal to 10% of the water already present in the atmospheric layer. Their research was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Here it is: https://www.foxnews.com/science/tonga-volcano-spews-enough-water-fill-olympic-size-swimming-pools-stratosphere

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:05 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 253 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Years ago Roger Pielke Sr. had his own website and I would often visit there. He wasn't one of the popular ones so it was easy to have conversations with him directly. While he was considered a "denier" he was still open to new research.

I remember his discussion on fossil water. That is, water pumped from deep aquifers. Some of that has been underground for millions of years and bringing it to the surface could, he calculated, lead to some planetary warming. He crunched the numbers and showed it was feasible.

This makes me think about that.

But I don't agree with the premise here. This water would likely have been in the atmosphere anyway at some point. And this completely disregards the actions of clouds, which become more prolific with more water vapor.

This line is an example of the author not understanding the science - or making poor choices of words:

"but the water from the Jan. 15 eruption could take 5-10 years to evaporate."

It's already evaporated. He means drop back out of the atmosphere. Condensation.

Oh, one more thing; the Earth's stratosphere averages -60 f. at the tropopause (where it meets the troposphere, or lower level.) I would think that would dissipate the water vapor rather quickly at such temperatures. The time frame given here seems a bit long to me.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at August 05, 2022 07:40 AM (E5hO+)

2 Seems to me that at such a high altitude water would turn to ice crystals, forming ice clouds, which reflect sunlight. They do not retain heat.

Posted by: Bill H at August 05, 2022 09:03 AM (Q7br2)

3 I'm not a scientist, but it seems to me that if a volcano ejected a lot of water vapor into the sky, it would lead to cooling, just like how Mt. Pinatubo's eruption cooled us off for a bit. You put something up there that blocks sunlight, you're gonna cool things off.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at August 05, 2022 09:15 PM (z7Oco)

4 It kind of addressed that, Dana, but not in any way that sounded plausible.

First, it said that a "normalâ€ volcanoâ€™s debris dissipated in 3-5 years, while this one ejected such a large amount, and so much of it was specifically water, that it would stay in the atmosphere for more than 5 years. They did not explain how that would cause warming rather than cooling.

Second was that this one sent the debris higher. Again, no explanation of why that would cause warming rather than cooling.

Posted by: Bill H at August 05, 2022 11:57 PM (Q7br2)

5 Bingo Bill! You have hit the nail on the head. It's too freaking cold up there. This water would indeed form into high clouds.

I agree Dana. Water clouds can cause cooling and often do. NASA research shows that particulate matter in the stratosphere cools the planet. https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/stratospheric-aerosols.html There is no reason to think clouds up there will warm it.

Low lying clouds in the troposphere will help hold in heat, like a blanket. But clouds in the stratosphere block sunlight and cool the planet. The author of this piece clearly didn't understand that fact.

He was probably getting his information from someone else, who either didn't know that himself or who had an agenda.

This is just lazy journalism.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at August 06, 2022 08:30 AM (d5DIk)

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Posted by: Kanpur Matka at September 20, 2022 04:49 AM (MbKbv)

7 Here's an interesting article, though I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion.

Posted by: Fake Watches at June 19, 2023 09:40 PM (0b23z)

8
That's always been the goal of these people - conservation. I remember

Posted by: Fake Watches at June 22, 2023 07:45 PM (0b23z)

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