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Acoustic-Gravity Lamb Waves from the Eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Hapai Volcano, Its Energy Release and Impact on Aerosol Concentrations and Tsunami

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Abstract

The characteristics of acoustic-gravity waves (waveforms, time durations, amplitudes, azimuths and horizontal phase speeds) from the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Hapai volcano detected at different infrasound stations of the Infrasound Monitoring System and at a network of low-frequency microbarographs in the Moscow region are studied. Using the correlation analysis of the signals at different locations, six arrivals of signals from the volcano, which made up to two revolutions around the Earth, were detected. The Lamb mode of acoustic gravity waves from the volcano eruption is identified and the effect of this mode on generation of tsunami waves and variation of aerosol concentration is studied. The energy released from an underwater volcano into the atmosphere is estimated from the parameters of the Lamb wave and compared with the energy released from the most powerful nuclear bomb of 58 Mt TNT.

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Acknowledgements

Atmospheric pressure data were obtained from following providers: the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (Croatia; http://faust.izor.hr/autodatapub/postaje2), Weather Underground service (https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap), Fiji Meteorological Service (Fiji), Dirección Meteorológica de Chile (Chile), Automated Surface Observing Systems (NOAA & NWS; USA), Sensors.Community (https://sensor.community/en/), Soratena Weather Sensors (Japan). The sea level data were downloaded from the Sea Level Station Monitoring Facility (UNESCO/IOC, http://www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org/). The work (Sects. 2, 3, 4) was partially supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant № 21-17-00021 and partially (Sects. 2, 5) by the Croatian Science Foundation project StVar-Adri (Grant IP-2019-04-8575) and by the ERC-StG 853045 SHExtreme project.

Funding

This study was funded by Russian Science Foundation (Grant no. 21-17-00021), Hrvatska Zaklada za Znanost (Grant no. IP-2019-04-8575 StVar-Adri) and H2020 European Research Council (Grant no. ERC-StG 853045 SHExtreme).

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Correspondence to S. N. Kulichkov or I. P. Chunchuzov.

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Kulichkov, S.N., Chunchuzov, I.P., Popov, O.E. et al. Acoustic-Gravity Lamb Waves from the Eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Hapai Volcano, Its Energy Release and Impact on Aerosol Concentrations and Tsunami. Pure Appl. Geophys. 179, 1533–1548 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-03046-4

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