Diffusion Height and Order of Sulfur Dioxide and Bromine Monoxide Plumes from the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai Volcanic Eruption

Abstract

A violent volcanic eruption attracting considerable attention occurred on 15 January 2022 near the South Pacific island nation of Tonga. To investigate its environmental impact, we retrieved the sulfur dioxide (SO2) and bromine monoxide (BrO) vertical column densities of environmental trace gas monitoring instrument 2 (EMI-2) based on the differential optical absorption spectroscopy algorithm. The results showed westward and southeastward transport of principal parts of SO2 and BrO plumes, respectively, from the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) eruption. On 15 January, most of the released SO2 entered the stratosphere (above 20 km) directly and spread rapidly westward (approximately 30 m/s). In contrast, the principal portion of the BrO spread southeastward slowly (approximately 10 m/s) within the 8–15 km altitude layer on 16 January. Our research results also suggest that during the HTHH eruption, BrO was released from the magmatic melt later than SO2. The total SO2 emissions from this eruption were approximately 0.24 Tg. The majority of SO2 and BrO plumes were transported within the Southern Hemisphere. This study is an important extension to the empirical database of volcanological and magmatic degassing research.

Keywords

• volcanic emissions
• submarine eruptions
• DOAS
• EMI-2
• sulfur dioxide plumes
• bromine monoxide plumes