Observing the SO2 and Sulphate Aerosol Plumes from the 2022 Hunga
Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Eruption with IASI
Abstract
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano violently erupted on 15 January
2022, producing the largest perturbation of the stratospheric aerosol
layer since Pinatubo 1991, despite the estimated modest injection of
SO2. Here we present novel SO2 and sulphate aerosol (SA) co-retrievals
from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Instrument, and use them to study
the dispersion of the Hunga Tonga plume over the entire year 2022. We
observe rapid conversion of SO2 (e-folding time: 17.1±0.6 days) to
sulphate aerosols (SA), with an initial injected burden of
>1.0 Tg. This points at larger SO2 injections than
previously thought. A long-lasting SA plume was observed, with a
meridional dispersion of marked anomalies from the tropics to the higher
southern hemispheric latitudes. A very small SA removal is observed
after 1-year dispersion. The total SA mass burden was estimated at 1.6 ±
0.1 Tg in total column, with a build-up e-folding time of about 2
months.