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May 17, 2022

Andrew Campbell 

According to research published in the journal Science, the eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in January 2022 was the largest since 1883. A group of 76 scientists documented and released a recent geophysical record titled "Atmospheric waves and global seismoacoustic observations of the January 2022 Hunga eruption, Tonga" on May 12.

As a result of the Hunga eruption, a wide spectrum of atmospheric waves was observed by various ground-based and space-borne instrumentation networks, including atmospheric pressure sensors, seismometers, hydrophones, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, and weather satellites.

The climactic Hunga eruption was comparable in scale to the 1883 Krakatau eruption, which killed over 30,000 people, according to Lamb wave amplitudes. Despite large tsunamis that destroyed large parts of Tonga and blanketed the region in volcanic ash on January 15, the climactic eruption of the undersea volcano at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai in Indonesia's south Pacific resulted in few deaths.