Publication: A multi-parametric and multi-layer study to investigate the largest 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruptions
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2022-07-29
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Abstract
On 20 December 2021, after six quiet years, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted abruptly. Then, on 15 January 2022, the largest eruption produced a plume well registered from satellites and destroyed the volcanic cone previously formed in 2015, connecting the two islands. We applied a multi-parametric and multi-layer study to investigate all the possible pre-eruption signals and effects of this volcanic activity in the lithosphere, atmosphere, and ionosphere. We focused our attention on: (a) seismological features considering the eruption in terms of an earthquake with equivalent energy released in the lithosphere; (b) atmospheric parameters, such as skin and air temperature, outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), cloud cover, relative humidity from climatological datasets; (c) varying magnetic field and electron density observed by ground magnetometers and satellites, even if the event was in the recovery phase of an intense geomagnetic storm. We found different precursors of this unique event in the lithosphere, as well as the effects due to the propagation of acoustic gravity and pressure waves and magnetic and electromagnetic coupling in the form of signals detected by ground stations and satellite data. All these parameters and their detailed investigation confirm the lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere coupling (LAIC) models introduced for natural hazards such as volcano eruptions and earthquakes.
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© 2022 by the authors.
Funding: This work has been funded partly by the Italian Ministry of University and Research in the
framework of the Working Earth (Pianeta Dinamico) Project and partly by the Italian Space Agency
within Limadou Science + Project.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory for providing us
with search coil magnetometer spectrograms; CSNA and CEA for providing CSES data; ESA for
providing Swarm satellite data and INTERMAGNET for providing the magnetic data from ground
observatories. We also thank ISPRA for providing tidegauge data used in this article. Thank for
the academic editor and reviewers for improving our manuscript with their comments. Finally, a
personal thank you to Gaetano De Luca for sharing his seismological experience in the review phase
of the paper.