Scott Manley has done an excellent summary video of the Tongan volcano, much of the science and history of it as well as the effects thousands of miles away. The area around the volcano had completely reformed in the last ten years. He has collected some great footage together.
It’s interesting watching air pressure waves travel across Japan and the USA. Ken Stewart found the compression- decompression wave hit the east coast of Australia at about 5:16 Qld time and took 3 hours and 24 minutes roughly to get to Shark Bay, an average speed of about 1,160 kph. The decompression was about half an hour after the first peak and can be seen (still) in weather station pressure data.
Eruptions of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai are roughly 900 years apart and this one was on schedule.
Thanks to Greg
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The CliffMass weather blog noted that the pressure wave hit Seattle at 4:30AM local time, so the air pressure spike took 8.5 hours to cross the Pacific at about 664miles per hour. h/t WattsUp
Sending best wishes for the poor people of Tonga. Planes are on the way to help, slightly complicated because Tonga is still Covid free, and people there are not too keen on dealing with that at the same time as the recovery.
Will Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai make a difference to global temperatures or will just it provide a convenient excuse for cooling that may be on the way in 2022 anyhow?
Never let a crisis go to waste …
It wouldn’t surprise me if they blamed the volcano on CO2 emissions given the local spike in CO2 often associated with volcanic eruptions.
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Well you should blame CO2 for the blast. The subducted material contained calcium carbonate, it would decompose to CO2 as it melted, the resulting gas can’t readily escape so it would associate with the magma. As the pressure rises and if the magma is not too stiff, the overlying rock/ocean could part ways and the rest is history.
So yes, CO2 did it, I tells ya. How much tax do we have to raise to prevent this?
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Won’t this cause a major dump of geopogenic CO2 into the atmosphere?
Good, it’s really cold and snowy here.
Sorry if you’re Tsunamied.
But living near the beach is kinda like being unvaccinated.
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First air pressure wave over Germany, Austria, Swizzerland
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Wow, these Jackasses are REALLY LATE in science studies.
This is the same Pressure Compaction and explosion generated when our atmosphere (Nitrogen gas) compacts and exploses out from the immense heat the bomb creates.
This has allowed Russia to be the winner in a Nuclear War as they use the Oceans to create the maximum damage on a country without actually bombing it.
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Amazing the times we live in. Thanks for posting this. Amazing.
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My money is for a blip on weather action, and none on climate(s).
Wishing the best for the people there.
The rapid video, and other information, about this is amazing. A few hundred years ago the rest of the world would not learn of this for months.
“Planes are on the way to help, …”
The local (impacted) islands will need much help, but again, on the World scale this will have minor monetary and related disruption. Much greater would be the consequences of Russia invading Ukraine, or China attacking Tawain, or Germany invading France.
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from Dr. R. Fleming’s new book https://balance10.blogspot.com/2022/01/from-dr-r-flemings-new-book.html
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And the BBC was worried about a few mm of exaggerated sea level rise from supposed man-made climate change. So many resources are wasted on a non-issue then nature comes within a whisker of wiping it from the face of the earth forever.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34738408
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There interesting thing here is if it’s true that volcanic eruptions are on the rise and the trend continues, the CO2 levels will trend up and accelerate. Does this mean the CAGW alarmists will increase their push to stop using fossil fuels? Looks another perfect example of mass formation psychosis in the making.
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The lightning was pretty amazing also.
https://mobile.twitter.com/COweatherman/status/1482350232255950848
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChurchillWx/status/1482278417466736651
One wonders what impact there is on the overall natural environment there afterwards.
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Then there was a “news” report from the ABC in October last year about a couple of Torres Strait islanders going to sue the Australian Government for failing to take action against climate change
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/australian-government-sued-for-failing-to-take-climate-action/100569558
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I don’t think the Australian courts’ jurisdiction extends to the Solar System. I hope the judge tossed it out.
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The compression- decompression wave hit the east coast of Australia at about 5:16 Qld time and took 3 hours and 24 minutes roughly to get to Shark Bay, an average speed of about 1,160 kph. The decompression was about half an hour after the first peak and can be seen (still) in weather station pressure data.
I have posted about this at https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2022/01/17/tonga-volcano-shock-wave/
Ken S
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I’ll add the link to the post. Thanks Ken!
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The Scott Manley video shows the pressure wave travelling across the USA and Japan. Incredible that it can be detected at these distances.
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The question is,,, how many times did that pressure wave circumnavigate the globe?
Hint, more than once>
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Yes he did a brilliant job. Interesting to see how far the tsunami waves went.
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See the discussion on WUWT. The wave height changes were detected on the east cost of USA. Apparently the speed of travel was similar to a jet plane.
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Not many passenger jets travel at just below the speed of sound, unless they have a big jet stream tail wind.
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See WUWT article. Based in the wave changes at sites around the world, the wave speed was estimated at 400-500 mph, or 640-800 kmh. This is less than the average commercial aircraft cruise speed of around 900 kmh, so I was out by a bit. But apart from aircraft speed at altitude being measured in Mach numbers, nothing to do with speed of sound.
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.8 mach is normal, .9 mach is doable for many.
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There have been comments in The Australian this morning, suggesting the use of Satphones to re-establish communications with Tonga. They may work, but with an ash cloud overhead, satellite communications may be doubtful. And most likely, no other alternative form of radio communications now exist on Tonga.
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It has been reported that satellite communications are still difficult due to ash.
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This eruption was powered by high silica magma. Not your usual Hawaiian type volcano.
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I wonder if it was actually caused by Spectre, testing out an atomic bomb? Evil organizations wouldn’t just live in a cave in the Swiss Mountains!
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An underwater Krakatoa…not the basalt-type Hawaiian eruption. CO2 emissions irrelevant, although the green slime and other woke AGW institutions would blame “climate change” for this eruption.
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As long as the Tongas dial into El Salvador, no problem with Covid.
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Green Slime. I like it.
There was a grocer near me many decades ago called ‘Greenaway’. So a useful t-shirt:
“Green Slime?, then Greenaway is the answer”.
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