Not only did it cause widespread tsunami waves, but it also belched an enormous amount of climate-warming water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere.
Now researchers in a new report have revealed something else: The eruption sparked more than 25,500 lightning strikes in just five minutes.
In just six hours, the volcano caused nearly 400,000 lightning strikes. (CNN) The eruption produced more than 25,500 lightning strikes in just five minutes. (CNN) In just six hours, the volcano unleashed nearly 400,000 lightning strikes. Half of all the lightning in the world was concentrated around this volcano at the peak of the eruption.
The “cataclysmic eruption” broke “all records,” according to the report by Vaisala, an environmental monitoring company that tracks lightning around the world.
“It’s the most extreme concentration of lightning we’ve ever seen,” Vaisala meteorologist and lightning expert Chris Vagasky told CNN.
Lightning rings the Hunga volcano in distinctive ring patterns during the peak of the eruption. Each image shows one minute of lightning detected every 10 minutes between 4:10 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. on January 15, 2022. (Supplied)
“We’ve been detecting lightning for 40 years and this is really an extreme event.”
Vaisala’s annual report found 2022 to be a year of extremes for lightning. Lightning increased in the US in 2022, with more than 198 million lightning strikes, 4 million more than what was observed in 2021 and 28 million more than in 2020.
“We continue to have an upward trend in lightning,” Vagasky said.
The World-Wide Lightning Location Network, another lightning monitoring network run by the University of Washington, which is not involved in the report, said Vaisala’s findings on global lightning and the Hunga volcano are consistent with its own observations.
“We can do this because the strongest eruptions generate lightning, and lightning sends detectable radio signals around the world,” Robert Holzworth, director of the network, told CNN.
In this satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC, an island created by the underwater Hunga Tonga volcano Hunga Ha’apai is seen smoking on January 7, 2022. (AP) When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano entered erupted in January 2022, sending shockwaves around the world. Not only did it cause widespread tsunami waves, but it also belched an enormous amount of climate-warming water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere. (Geological Survey of Tonga, Government of Tonga.)
“Hunga’s eruption was absolutely stunning in its lightning activity.”
Researchers have used lightning as a key indicator of the climate crisis, as the phenomenon typically signals warming temperatures.
Lightning occurs in energetic storms associated with an unstable atmosphere, which require relatively warm and moist air, so they occur mainly in tropical latitudes and elsewhere during the summer months.
But in 2022, Vaisala’s National Ray Detection Network found more than 1,000 lightning strikes in Buffalo, New York, during a devastating lake-effect snowstorm that dumped more than 76 centimeters of snow on the city , but racked up all-time totals of more than six. feet to the surrounding suburbs along Lake Erie. In this drone footage, homes along the shores of Lake Erie near Fort Erie, Ont., remain covered in ice after a winter storm ravaged much of Ontario. (AP)
Lake effect snow occurs when cold air blows over warm lake water, in this case the Great Lakes.
The large temperature difference can cause extreme instability in the atmosphere and lead to thunderstorm-like lightning even in a blizzard.
The report noted that many of those lightning strikes happened near wind turbines south of Buffalo, which Vagasky said was significant.
He explained that the clouds filled with ice crystals were lower than usual, scraping just above the turbine blades.
“This can lead to what’s known as self-initiated upward lightning,” Vagasky said. “So the lightning occurs because it’s charged at the tip of this wind turbine blade that’s very close to the base of the cloud, and it’s very easy to get a connection from the electrical charge.”
In this photo provided by the Royal Australian Navy, a resident of Nomuka Island in Tonga cleans up debris after the Jan. 15, 2022, eruption of Hunga TongaHunga Ha’apai volcano. (AP)
This is an area of ongoing research, he said, as the country turns to cleaner energy alternatives.
“We’re seeing bigger and bigger wind turbines, and certainly as we put in more and more wind power and renewables, lightning will play a role,” he said.
The report comes after an unusual year in 2021, when they found that lightning strikes increased significantly in the typically frozen Arctic region, which scientists say is a clear sign of how the climate crisis is altering the climate global
“Lightning in the polar regions was not mentioned [in this year’s Vaisala report]but our global lightning network shows a trend toward much more lightning in the northern polar regions,” Michael McCarthy, research associate professor and associate director of the World Wide Lightning Location Network, told CNN.
The post-Christmas heatwave brings back the scorching Australian summer
“This trend closely follows the average temperature changes observed in the Northern Hemisphere.
“This close monitoring suggests, but does not prove, an effect of climate change,” McCarthy added.
Vagasky said lightning in colder areas will only increase as the planet warms, noting that meteorologists and climatologists have been collecting more data not only to make climate connections clear, but also to keep safe people
“That’s why they’ve named lightning as an essential climate variable,” he said, “because it’s important to know where it’s occurring, how much it’s occurring, and then you can see how storms are doing as a result of climate change “.