Free Republic

Tonga Eruption Blasted Unprecedented Amount of Water Into Stratosphere The huge amount of water vapor hurled into the atmosphere, as detected by NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder, could end up temporarily warming Earth’s surface.When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to...

In 2022, the Royal Australian Mint issued a $2 coin decorated with honeybees. Around 2,400 years earlier, a mint in the kingdom of Macedon had the same idea, creating a silver obol coin with a bee stamped on one side.Over the centuries between these two events, currency demonstrating a symbolic link between honey and money is surprisingly common.In a recent study in Australian Coin Review, I trace the bee through numismatic history—and suggest a scientific reason why our brains might naturally draw a connection between the melliferous insects and the abstract idea of value...Ancient Malta was famous for its honey....

The current heat wave is being relentlessly blamed on increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there is a much more plausible explanation, one that is virtually endorsed by two of the world’s leading scientific organizations. It turns out that levels of water vapor in the atmosphere have dramatically increased over the last year-and-a-half, and water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures, a mechanism that dwarfs any effect CO2 may have. So, why has atmospheric water vapor increased so dramatically? Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption last year...

M 7.6 - 95 km WNW of Hihifo, Tonga Time 2023-05-10 12:02:00 (UTC-04:00) Location 15.600°S 174.608°W Depth 210.1 km

The initial tsunami wave created by the eruption of the underwater Hunga Tonga Ha'apai volcano in Tonga in January 2022 reached 90 meters in height, around nine times taller than that from the highly destructive 2011 Japan tsunami, new research has found. An international research team says the eruption should serve as a wake-up call for international groups looking to protect people from similar events in future, claiming that detection and monitoring systems for volcano-based tsunamis are '30 years behind' comparable tools used to detect earthquake-based events. Dr. Mohammad Heidarzadeh, Secretary-General of the International Tsunami Commission and a senior lecturer...

When an underwater volcano in Tonga erupted in January, it belched out more than ash and volcanic gases; it also spewed 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools' worth of water vapor into Earth's atmosphere, a new study finds. This water vapor could end up being the most destructive part of the volcano's eruption because it could potentially exacerbate global warming and deplete the ozone layer, according to the study. When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it became the most powerful explosion on Earth in more than 30 years, with an equivalent force of 100 Hiroshima bombs.

Wary Pacific nations are resisting ‘good brother’ China’s offer to expand its scope Round one does not go to China. It failed to convince a group of Pacific island nations to sign an agreement to keep receiving security and economic cooperation from itself. They could not shed their suspicions that China was attempting to show off its ‘partners’ in the South Pacific to square off with the QUAD’s growing presence in the Indo-Pacific. Some nations were opposed to the Chinese offer, titled ‘China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision’. What raised eyebrows were the Chinese proposals to train local police, help...

A specialist ship on its way to restore a vital communications cable linking Tonga to the rest of the world is expected to reach the archipelago on Sunday, two weeks after a volcanic eruption and tsunami damaged homes, resorts and infrastructure. The ship left Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, almost 5,000 km (3,000 miles) away on Jan. 20, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, and is expected to need a few weeks to carry out complicated repairs to the undersea cable. ... Faults in the world’s 436 active undersea cables are common and typically most traffic would be rerouted to another...

The plane was forced to reverse course mid-flight on Thursday due to a positive COVID-19 case on board the aircraft that was headed for the Pacific nation in the aftermath of Saturday's volcanic eruption and tsunami which devastated the country. Since Tonga is COVID-19 free, it has required delivery of aid to the island nation of about 105,000 to be contactless in order to keep the coronavirus out.

Last week’s eruption of the volcano near the Pacific island nation of Tonga was 600 times more powerful than the nuke dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II. As a result, the eruption was so loud that many Tongans went deaf after the first explosion. “The first explosion…our ears were ringing and we couldn’t even hear each other, so all we do is pointing to our families to get up, get ready to run,” Marian Kupu, a journalist on Tonga, told Reuters. The eruption was so loud that it could be heard across the world, even thousands of miles...

Here is the late info on the Hunga Tonga volcano

SYDNEY — The Pacific nation of Tonga, scrambling to recover from a devastating volcanic eruption on Saturday that sent tsunami waves halfway around the world, faces a new threat: a potential “tsunami” of coronavirus infections. Aid groups and defense officials from Australia and New Zealand are working on contactless ways to deliver water and other vital supplies to the remote archipelago kingdom, which is one of the few places in the world to remain essentially free of the virus. (Residents went into a brief lockdown in November when a single case, Tonga’s first, was detected in a person at a...

A British woman who went missing after a huge undersea volcanic eruption rocked Tonga has been found dead, her family said, in the first reported fatality in the Pacific island nation. The brother of Angela Glover, who ran an animal rescue center, said the 50-year-old died after being swept away by a wave. Nick Eleini said his sister's body had been found and that her husband James survived, the BBC reported. "I understand that this terrible accident came about as they tried to rescue their dogs," Eleini said in a video statement posted by Sky News.

On Saturday, the volcano at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupted, sending ash plumes 30 kilometres into the atmosphere, kicking off a tsunami in Tonga that reached as far away as Alaska, and destroying a volcanic cone that connected the uninhabited islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai. The volcano is around 65 kilometres northwest of Tongan capital, Nuku’alofa, with experts saying it was one of the most powerful eruptions since the 1990s. “The sea level gauge at Nuku’alofa, Tonga, recorded a tsunami wave of 1.19 metres before it stopped reporting,” Dr Hannah Power of the University of Newcastle said. “Waves of...

Scientists are struggling to monitor an active volcano that erupted off the South Pacific island of Tonga at the weekend, after the explosion destroyed its sea-level crater and drowned its mass, obscuring it from satellites. The eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano, which sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire, sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2,300 kms (1,430 miles) away in New Zealand. “The concern at the moment is how little information we have and that’s scary,” said Janine Krippner, a New Zealand-based volcanologist with the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program. “When the vent is...

The eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano, which sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire, sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2,300 kms (1,430 miles) away in New Zealand. [O]n-site instruments were likely destroyed in the eruption and the volcanology community was pooling together the best available data and expertise to review the explosion and predict anticipated future activity. Saturday's eruption was so powerful that space satellites captured not only huge clouds of ash but also an atmospheric shockwave that radiated out from the volcano at close to the speed of sound. Photographs and videos...

Considering the closeness the island of Tonga is to the active volcano, "Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai", I suggest anyone who lives in Tonga to truly consider selling their property and flee the island. Even if they stay, at least sell your property while you still can. I say this because all evidence is pointing to an eruption that, even if it is not as powerful as Krakatoa was in 1883, it will still be powerful enough to wipe out the islands which is only 30 miles away. Now even if the volcano does not completely destroy it, then ensuing tsunami will. Does anyone...

AAP/Japan Meteorology Agency Why the volcanic eruption in Tonga was so violent, and what to expect next January 15, 2022 3.04pm EST Shane Cronin, University of Auckland Author Shane Cronin Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Auckland The Kingdom of Tonga doesn’t often attract global attention, but a violent eruption of an underwater volcano on January 15 has spread shock waves, quite literally, around half the world. The volcano is usually not much to look at. It consists of two small uninhabited islands, Hunga-Ha’apai and Hunga-Tonga, poking about 100m above sea level 65km north of Tonga’s capital Nuku‘alofa. But hiding...

Rugby football, via television, has brought to the world an ancient and aggressive form of South Pacific dancing, not the beautiful girls in hula skirts with leis around their necks to welcome American sailors in search of rest and recreation, as Technicolor movies told the world was how dancing was done in the islands. The four Pacific Island teams at the Rugby World Cup have shown off dances of a different kind to the world, the best moments of prematch drama. It was a moment of gripping drama as the All Blacks performed their Haka, now stylised and theatrical, and...

Fiji jewellery box find stuns archeologists 22 APR 2008 Archeologists have discovered a 3000-year-old pot in Fiji containing jewellery believed to have been made by the South Pacific’s original settlers – the Lapita people. The discovery was made by an excavation party from the Fiji-based University of the South Pacific and the Fiji Museum at Bourewa in Natadola on the Coral Coast. The dig at Bourewa, which is the earliest human settlement in Fiji, unearthed the pot and a thick piece of “exquisitely decorated pottery”. The Lapita people were the first colonists of Pacific Island groups, including the eastern Solomon...