Water Vapor from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Eruption will Warm the Atmosphere
The article I chose is one from NPR entitled, “Tonga's volcano sent tons of water into the stratosphere. That could warm the Earth”. It references a study led by a NASA scientist published in Geophysical Research Letters, “The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Hydration of the Stratosphere”.
On January 15, 2022, a large volcano in Tonga, a collection of Polynesian islands in the South Pacific, had a massive eruption that resulted in large amounts of aerosols and gasses being released into the atmosphere. Upon first reading the NPR article, I found it to be very informative on the subject while still being succinct enough to keep the attention of the average reader. The article opened with, “The violent eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano injected an unprecedented amount of water directly into the stratosphere…” This surprised me, as I knew that volcanic eruptions do cause massive disruptions to the atmosphere. I was interested to see if the researchers truly did have “unprecedented” findings, or if this was an over exaggeration by the author.
The article actually gives a little bit more background on the volcano than the research study, including the facts that the mountain range is 12 miles wide, and that the eruption resulted in a three-mile-wide plume of steam and ash. It then provides some of the statistics that were given in the research study. It states that, “The massive amount of water vapor is roughly 10% of the normal amount of vapor found in the stratosphere, equaling more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.” It makes good use of quotes from both the article and the lead researcher, without relying solely on them for information. Additionally, the article is a good length–providing enough background, information, and context to the general public without getting too into the details of the research study. It ultimately emphasizes that the amount of water vapor and how high it was injected will have a warming effect rather than the cooling effect that is normally observed following volcanic eruptions by stating, “they usually cool temperatures, because they send light-scattering aerosols into the stratosphere. Those aerosols act as a sort of massive layer of sunscreen. But since water vapor traps heat, the Tongan eruption could temporarily raise temperatures a bit, the researchers said.”
The study, led by Luis Millán, was published in Geophysical Research Letters with open access and a plain language summary, making it accessible to any readers of the NPR article who would want to read more. It used data from NASA’s Aura Microwave Limb Sounder to evaluate the amount of several trace gasses in the atmosphere following the eruption. I was happy to find that the data that the NPR article reported–the blast sent water vapor as high as 35 miles, the water vapor being 10% of the normal amount of water vapor found in the stratosphere, and that the water could take 5-10 years to dissipate–were all consistent with the data reported in the study, with only units being changed for an American audience. A large portion of the paper is dedicated to explaining how valid measurements were acquired, since the amount of water vapor detected was much larger than had ever previously been observed. Ultimately, however, the authors were able to determine that the eruption sent an unprecedented amount of water vapor to an unprecedented altitude (both records in the satellite era). The last portion of the paper explained how this would impact stratospheric chemistry and dynamics.
I agree with the NPR author’s decision to leave out the explanation of how reliable data was obtained and to instead focus on the findings and their impacts, as a general audience would most likely not understand or not be interested in the details. There are, however, a few things I would note as shortcomings. Most importantly, I think that the article could have included some more of the impacts of having so much water vapor in the stratosphere. It states that, “The Jan. 15 eruption emphatically disrupted annual water patterns in the stratosphere (which also holds most of the atmosphere's ozone)”, but does not explain why that is important. In the discussion of the research study, they list many impacts water vapor has on ozone formation and destruction, which could have been noted in the NPR article. The research study also explains how the water vapor could affect weather patterns, which is left out of the NPR article. Lastly, it says that the volcano sits at 500 feet below sea level, but doesn’t explain how that aided in the large amount of water vapor produced. The article ends by saying that researchers are going to continue to monitor the water vapor, and do more research on short term and long term effects from both this eruption and ones that will occur in the future. I think this was a good way to avoid over or under-selling the results of the research study.
I think the article and research study are in very good agreement, with all the facts stated in the article being consistent with the study. I give it an 8/10, since it accurately explained the results of the study while still being written well for a general audience. The one thing that would have improved it would be including more detail on the impact of water vapor in the stratosphere on its chemistry and dynamics.
Thank you for your insight. I thought this was a really informative news article. They talked about the increase of water vapor, HCl, and SO2 in the atmosphere and how it would take years to dissipate; I wonder how this volcano eruption will effect the formation of the ozone hole. Since more aerosols and water make it into the stratosphere, chemistry on the surface of PCPs allow for Cl radicals to form.
ReplyDeleteThe authors of the research study did mention that they would expect a net ozone depletion event due to the HOx cycle.
DeleteI enjoyed reading the articles you picked! Something I observed is that the Geophysical Research Letters article mentions other impacts of the high water vapor in the atmosphere such as increasing the strength of the westerly jets and shifting the locations of storms. The NPR article left these out. Do you think they should have been included why or why not? I am also curious if there are other impacts of more water in the stratosphere that you came across during your research.
ReplyDeleteI do think the authors should have included that! Weather impacts seem like something that could be easily understood by the general public, so I do wonder why they left that out. I didn't find anything else on excess water in the stratosphere, I'd assume because of the unprecedented amount due to this event. I'm intrigued to see the impacts that these and other researchers find in the coming years.
DeleteThank you for the analysis. When you mention what you think the author of the NPR article could have added, what impact do you think including that information would have on the readability and succinctness of the article, if any?. With articles for the general public such as this, it seems to be a balancing act of including enough relevant information without turning the reader away. I am curious to hear your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI think that the authors could have easily included one or two sentences on the chemistry that could occur in the stratosphere, especially since they chose to bring up ozone but didn't elaborate on it, that would be easily understood by a general audience. I think it would add to the 'why should we care?' aspect of the article.
DeleteThese were very interesting articles! Personally, I found the note that the NPR article ended on to be somewhat awkward, as it mentioned the disruption of the annual water pattern heartbeat, but it didn't give any information beyond that. Reading the scientific article made it sound like this heartbeat gave a good indication on the timescale this event would take before returning back to the normal cycle based on previous disruptions (if I was interpreting it correctly), but that wasn't clear at all from the NPR article. That section also briefly mentioned ozone without going into detail, making the article feel unfinished. I'd love to know your thoughts on if the NPR article should have gone further into detail here or if you think that would have added more confusion in for a general audience.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to rewrite the NPR article, I would replace that last section with more of the atmospheric chemistry impacts that the research study mentions, because I agree it read awkwardly. Maybe that's just because I'm a chemist, but the general public has heard about ozone depletion and probably would understand the impact to that more than this specific weather pattern disruption that the NPR author did a poor job of explaining.
DeleteThe article you picked is interesting! I did not know much about volcano disruptions so this is also new to me. I think you have made several valid points (and I agree with them!) that they gave the general audience just enough background to make the article informative without giving too many details which may be hard to read. Overall, the article is quite easy to read but I also learn a lot about volcanoes and the stratosphere (the mechanism of how water can heat up the earth)at the same time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these articles -- I learned a lot! I've always thought that water vapor and its role as a greenhouse gas is not really talked about enough. I also never made the connection that volcanic eruptions could have such an effect on our global climate. I was curious about a point made in the geophysical research letters article: They attribute the high moisture content of the eruption to the volcano being close to sea level, leading to the formation of explosive steam. I thought this was interesting -- does this mean that volcanos located near water will always result in eruptions with higher moisture levels?
ReplyDeleteI believe that it is due to the fact that the volcano is located near water, but also below sea level, that allows the water to become superheated and reach the altitudes that it did.
DeleteHi Veronica,
ReplyDeleteI noticed that the Geophysical Research Letters paper that the NPR article was focused on included a section titled "Plain Language Summary". I thought this inclusion was really neat and addresses some of the conversation that we have had in class about the accessibility of science to the general public. I think that this is especially useful because this article is open-access, so in addition to removing the financial barrier to the study's results, the authors also attempt to remove the language barrier as well. Do you think this "Plain Language Summary" should be adopted by more journals and authors? Could this adoption help to ensure that news-reported scientific results be represented more accurately?
Hi Veronica
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your response to the NPR article. NPR is generally a well regarded news outlet, and it seems as if this follows through for the discussion of this science paper as well. I was interested to read that the NPR author chose to not explain how the measurements for the original paper was collected - I agree with your statement that it was likely due to not wanting to overcomplicate the topic. However, I think that this is a large drawback of the NPR article - in order to accurately portray the findings, a brief explanation of how it was collected is also important.