I’m in Mississippi and we’re seeing record heat. I’ve read that the South Pacific volcano from January of 2022 may be part of the reason. How?

Question

I’m in Mississippi and we’re seeing record heat. I’ve read that the South Pacific volcano from January of 2022 may be part of the reason. How?

In: 155

Answer 1

The Tonga Eruption was a massive eruption of an underwater volcano visible from space that sent a tsunami around the globe. Scientists estimated that this eruption added an additional 5%-10% more water (vapor) to the atmosphere in January 2022.

Water vapor is our planet’s most prevalent greenhouse gas. It’s generally not discussed in the conversation of human caused climate change because we produce way more ‘unnatural’ CO2 than we introduce ‘unnatural’ water vapor to the atmosphere.

When an event like an eruption adds an additional 5%-10% more water vapor to the atmosphere, it is going to have an increasing impact on the greenhouse effect. Meaning, less of the suns energy is able to be reflected back into space and as a result of this our climate warms. This is the same mechanism by which our CO2 emissions warm the planet.

I’m no meteorologist but I’d wager that this is currently impacting weather patterns across the globe and will continue to do so until the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere stabilizes to pre-eruption levels.