Tonga's volcano expelled so much water that it may have affected the climate
Water vapor is the main greenhouse gas. According to NASA, the eruption released into the atmosphere the equivalent of 58,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Volcán Hunga Tonga / Wikimedia Commons.
On January 15, the underwater volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, located off the island of Tonga, erupted. The eruption produced a tsunami and a sonic boom that was felt across much of the globe. And yet, these are not the most spectacular effects of the volcano, nor the ones with the greatest impact on the Earth.
According to a study conducted by NASA's California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the volcano has released a gigantic amount of water into the atmosphere. This is of concern to scientists, as water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas, well above CO2 or methane.
In fact, that is one of the conclusions of the paper, published in Geophysical Research Letters. The authors say: "This eruption could affect (...) surface warming due to radiative forcing from excess stratospheric water". Radiative forcing is the term used by the IPCC to refer to the greenhouse effect.
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