2022 Tongan Volcanic Explosion Was Largest Natural Explosion in Over a Century, New Study Finds (IMAGE)

University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science

2022 Tongan Volcanic Explosion Was Largest Natural Explosion in Over a Century, New Study Finds

Caption

This image was captured by the Sentinel-1A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite in VV polarization over the Tonga island archipelago on 14 January 2022 at 17:08 UTC, 13 hours after the initial eruption, and relayed to the University of Miami Rosenstiel School’s Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS) facility in southwest Miami-Dade County. CSTARS performed an enhancement of the image to delineate clearly the circular wave patterns, likely internal waves, emanating from the volcano (large, bright spot on the left bottom) and diffracting around the islands and coral reefs of the Tonga archipelago as well as interacting with each other.

Credit

© 2022 European Space Agency – ESA, produced from ESA remote sensing data, image processed by ESA. Radiometrically enhanced by CSTARS.

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