Service Ceiling for the P3 Orion is not below 19,000 feet. it is up to 28,300 feet. The 19000 foot ceiling is with one engine operative. Not sure what this is reported in error. Makes it sound like the aircraft is far less effective than it is 2600:8804:1B8C:7A00:8024:F029:2893:242E (talk) 15:05, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I created a longer version based on the complete data. It lasts about 24h and shows the eruption as well as the prevailing winds dissipating the ash cloud. It's a fairly large file -- I tried compressing it and optimizing it in a few different ways, but ~30MB is about the best I could come up with. That's still much better than the original ~80MB source file I started with. I won't add it myself but here's the commons link -- A 24 hour view of the Hunga Tonga volcano eruption from the GOES-West satellite. If it's good enough to add, could someone please add it? MrAureliusRTalk!08:04, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Once in a thousand years
This sentence: "A scientist from the University of Auckland described it as a one-in-1000-year event." can easily be misunderstood. The claim is that it is a once in a thousand year event for this volcano. Obviously, eruptions of this scale are far more frequent globally. This should probably be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1811:4D16:4600:8754:595F:418E:F972 (talk) 08:51, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Not done - The 30 cm refers to the small tsunami wave observed following events on 14 January and that matches the cited source. Mikenorton (talk) 12:02, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 24 January 2022 (2)
Add more information on international aid to Tonga in the "Response" section.
On January 20, the Japanese Government dispatched two C-130H via Australia to Tonga. Subsequently, the Japanese Ministry of Defense decided to send JS Osumi with 60,000 liters of drinking water, high-pressure cleaning devices for removing volcanic ash, and two CH-47J onboard. The Ministry had also deployed its C-2 transport aircraft loaded with additional relief supplies.[1] The Japanese Government has also planned to offer more than $1million in funds for Tonga.[2]Nitze1950 (talk) 08:40, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
and contained approximately 2–2.6 km3 (0.48–0.62 cu mi) of material,[citation needed] roughly twice that of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
to
and may have contained as much as 1 cubic kilometre (0.24 cu mi) of material, roughly twice that of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
The source at the end of the sentence says initial assessments indicate that up to one cubic kilometre of material spewed from the Tongan volcano. "May have" reflects the uncertainty of relying on initial assessments and the "up to" uncertainty in the source. 122.150.71.249 (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
The source is problematic anyway because it says both that this eruption is twice as big as Mount St Helens 1980, which gives at least 2 km3 of material, because the 1980 eruption must have been at least 1 km3 to qualify as VEI=5, while at the same time saying that this one only may have reached 1 km3. It doesn't add up. I think that we should probably drop the bit about "twice as big as Mount St Helens 1980" as that it not repeated by other sources. I've raised the issue under the section heading "Volume of eruption?" near the top of this page. Thanks for pointing this out. Mikenorton (talk) 22:25, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Remove automated C-to-F conversion from "A cooling effect of 0.1–0.5 °C (32.2–32.9 °F) may last until Spring", the conversion macro here is interpreting 0.1°C as a temperature and providing the Fahrenheit equivalent of 32.18°F. Because this is a change of a tenth of a degree C, the correct equivalent is 0.18-0.9°F. 2600:8807:540B:6B00:5D02:CCA1:660D:39E1 (talk) 06:20, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Done - thanks for pointing that out - there's an option in the template to go from "C-change" to "F-change", which should have been used in this case. Mikenorton (talk) 21:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 24 January 2022 (3)
Please change "liters" to "litres". This is not a US article, and Tongans generally write in Commonwealth English. The spelling "metre" is already in use elsewhere in the article, and "meter" doesn't appear, except in citations.
Preliminary data indicate that the event was probably the largest volcanic eruption in the 21st century, and the largest recorded since the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.[4] NASA determined that the eruption was more powerful than an atomic bomb.
The phrase the largest volcanic eruption in the 21st century, and ought to be removed. If it's the largest since 1991, obviously it's the largest this century. And instead of "an atomic bomb" with a link to nuclear weapon, the end should become "the first nuclear weapon" with a link to Little Boy. The source says that the eruption "was hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima during World War Two". Atomic bombs can have a wide variety of yield: Little Boy was almost a thousand times more powerful than the smallest nuclear weapon (15000 tonnes versus 20 tonnes), and Nuclear weapon#Fission weapons says that the strongest ones have yields greater than 500,000 tonnes. This means that "mower powerful than an atom bomb" doesn't mean much at all. 122.150.71.249 (talk) 19:58, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Tonga is on the other side of the date line, Meaning the recent large eruption began on the 15th, not the 14th.
Also the article still states in the first paragraph that the volcano has been declared dormant since the 11th. An addtional part should be added specifying that though declared dormant, 4 days later, A Catastrophic eruption occured. 2406:E003:1972:AD00:3DEC:4AFE:A24:7F2 (talk) 09:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I moved the volcanic tsunami section down, which I think should make it clearer that the volcano did not stay dormant for long. Hopefully that part works for you. Skarmory(talk •contribs)17:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Word of caution
This is a new, developing, and devastating event. Something a lot of researchers on spaces like twitter have noticed is tons of misinformation or misinterpretation. Such an example was the supposed 'second eruption' on the 16th that quickly propagated across the internet by media outlets like the New York Post, which was based on a misunderstanding of the DAAC's alert (https://twitter.com/janinekrippner/status/1482896512988626944) about ash coming into Australia. I've already seen tons of videos and photos in recent days from other eruptions, or 'eruptions' that were computer-generated, or from events relating to this volcano but from months earlier. Please be mindful. Teag42 (talk) 22:49, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Minor tsunami in the Gulf of Mexico, the Carribbean, and Puerto Rico?
The article says:
"Minor tsunamis related to the eruption were measured as far away as the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, with NOAA reporting a maximum rise of 0.18 m (0.59 ft) in Puerto Rico"
My question: How in the world could a volcano in the South Pacific affect sea level rise on the other side of two continental masses???, i.e. how could the wave reach around Africa and/or South America/Central America? I don't get it. It seems highly implausible to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.67.45 (talk) 21:12, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
All of the Canada and US and Chile references already referred to the west coast of those areas when I logged in minutes ago. Martindo (talk) 21:30, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
The Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean event is a meteo-tsunami caused by the pressure fluctuations with the volcanic shockwave rather than a continuation of the tsunami caused by the eruption proper. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 01:57, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Dozens of eruptions, increasing in strength? Also a question for lawyers
Yes they are not so good with volcanos, especially mainly undersea ones, as most of evidence used to predict tsunami's is from earthquakes where the energy does not go into atmosphere or a rather large ocean. The NOAA gets its data mainly from USGS for initial warnings. In due course with this eruption which had a very low magnitude (less than 1) on the automatic detection programs they use, they corrected up to 5.8 but by then they had to also retract their downgrading of the tsunami risk for Hawaii by events in the wild as the deep sea DART network does not trigger well with prolonged events. Also as one might imagine USGS is not necessarily the best immediate source of information for events in the South Pacific - for example there was some interesting earthquake drum data at NZ Geonet showing the prolonged "rumble" of 8 minutes plus quite unlike an earthquake. NZ data is not necessarily available for USGS processing from the time delays I have seen historically with NZ centric large events being shown on USGS website but in due course USGS provides useful data as its seismographs have more reach. ChaseKiwi (talk) 20:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
There are dozens, apparently increasing in strength, yes?
We need a section describing the lack of a response from the french, who are closer to Tonga than Australia and New Zealand, and occupy French Polynesia.178.202.82.89 (talk) 00:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
(Shockwave *2) – Could be added; I think it looks reasonable as an addition, but I'm not sure how to write it right now; if it still hasn't been added by later, I may tackle it.
(VEI) – Deleted, would be self-published anyway and I would rather wait until we get some more certainty.
(Fiji acid rain) – Already in article, though I don't know when it was added.
(SO2) – I don't know how to read this, so I'll leave it to someone else.
(American Samoa tsunami advisory #2) – Already in article, though I don't know when it was added.
First, congratulations to all those involved with this article. It is very good. Second, I really doubt that the wave height on the west coast was 15m when 30km away on Tongatapu it was 1.5m. The Ha'atufu Beach Resort has reported that all its staff survived, unlikely with a 15m tsunami. Keep up the good work. Roundtheworld (talk) 21:18, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
At this point, the 15-meter tsunami claim is the official tsunami height given by the Tongan government. There has not been any word about that height being revised down or up so we'll have to stick to it for now. Results are probably preliminary so a detailed on-site investigation will definitely take place and those numbers can be corrected. Dora the Axe-plorer (explore the morgue) 00:37, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
Normalized times
Being an event of global proportions, could it be necessary or does make senses to rewrite all the times in UTC? Or something like "at XX:YY localtime (WW:ZZ UTC, h:mm:ss after <event/eruption>)", it would be interesting to see that after the eruption, how many hours it took for the tsunami or waves to reach several places in a straightforward format. --Roqz (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
I support the use of UTC given the reasons stated by --Roqz. This would help interpret the effects of the eruption and allow a user to quickly determine how soon after the effects (such as the tsunami) happened. Jurisdicta (talk) 17:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
I would personally prefer the title to be at something like "2022 Hunga Tonga eruption and tsunami", as I imagine a lot of people will be focused on the tsunami. I would boldly move it, but I want to gauge other people's thoughts. Skarmory(talk •contribs)15:58, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
Well done. We also need significant cleanup of all the "predicted" and "expected" in the Response section to match the actual "recorded" and "reported" in the Tsunami section. Predictions are naturally part of warnings, but the expected wave heights can now be deleted in order to reduce confusion. Martindo (talk) 21:28, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
The main event is still the volcanic eruption... and the tsunami is a separate thing, that was caused by the main event. Wouldn't it make much more sense to have two separate articles? Ivo (talk) 07:50, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Misleading picture
I have commented out this picture in the article. Is it not obvious that naive readers will see this and think that the interface between dark and light that is the most conspicuous moving thing in this picture is the shockwave? But it is nothing of the sort: it is the boundary between dark and light that makes a full revolution around the planet every 24 hours. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:51, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
Eruption with shock wave spreading around the globe (bottom right)
It would be nice to know the volume of the eruption. The satellite images are spectacular but hard to place in context for their significance. How much smaller is the eruption compared to the larger, climate changing events outlined in the list of the largest volcanic eruptions? 73.88.252.3 (talk) 14:58, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
No VEI has been assigned yet (far too early), and no volume of erupted material has been proposed that I'm aware of. We must wait for scholarly analysis - the size of the ash cloud is not a direct means of calculating erupted volume. Acroterion(talk)19:13, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
As I have pointed out you do not need the volume if you have an accurate figure for the maximum height of the eruption cloud. Certainly, the original approaches to VEI of total volume ejected to end of eruption will certainly have inaccuracies here (as almost always) where little land surface immediately down wind. We do know that the undersea part of caldera is bigger than before the event relative to either when the islands formed in 2009 or up to 14th January 2022 so there is a certain minimal volume here for a caldera that is at least 2km across and has had at least 30m of material missing now given the satellite radio imaging after eruption so that's a VEI of at least 4. The distance the sound transmitted is more like a VEI of 6 to 7 at least given that we have to go back to 1815 for similar human ear canal reports. For that matter I can not recall reports of pressure wave around world with the VEI 5 or 6 events we have had since this was easily measurable with mass availability of atmospheric pressure electronic data logs but have not done a search on this. I have been pursing official sources since challenged (as others had estimated VEI to be at least 5) for the peak atmosphere height such as NOAA Hypersplit models but not helpful likely as weekend. There is another source with analysis to suggest > 30 km atmospheric column height see Philippe Papin [@pppapin] (15 January 2022). "Want to take a moment to compare last 2 eruptions of Tonga #Volcano. Can infer ash plume hgt comparing Bt of IR/WV to near radiosonde profile. 1/13 eruption got to ~15-20 km aloft. 1/15 eruption (today) possibly >30 km! Deep Stratospheric injection likely given sat signature" (Tweet). Retrieved 16 January 2022 – via Twitter. However the other source may well be a quote from this source. If true this is easily a VEI of 6. I await like many others more informed analysis but VEIs often cause academic debate for years even when eruptions are over and you certainly can not calculate the final VEI until that is the case. ChaseKiwi (talk) 19:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Possibly 6 Gigatons (6 billion tons) with a Magnitude of 5.8 tying it with Pinatubo according to this Japanese volcanologist from Gunma University. (https://twitter.com/HayakawaYukio/status/1482883867677958145), which would make it at least a VEI 6. It also broke Krakatoa's 1883 record for furthest heard volcano. So it is either going to be a Plinian eruption or an Ultraplinian eruption depending on the data. Teag42 (talk) 01:31, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
there is some sources the VEI of volcano 4 or 5. I think we should wait the official sources (Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program). HurricaneEdgar02:07, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
I've added a "citation needed" tag for the volume of material now included in the article. I note that the citation at the end of that sentence say both "Volcanologists estimate the material ejected in the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption was about twice that of the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980" and "GNS Science says initial assessments indicate that up to one cubic kilometre of material spewed from the Tongan volcano.", which doesn't really add up. Mikenorton (talk) 15:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
We will need a better source than that. The biggest difference between the Hunga-Tonga and Mount Pinatubo eruptions is that the latter was fully sub-aerial (little if any water involved) and the former involved the effects of very large quantities of seawater hitting magma, so the explosions are not that easy to compare. The amount of sulphur dioxide ejected into the atmosphere back in 1991 was 15–30 million tonnes, which is a great deal more that that estimated for Hunga-Tonga at 450,000 tonnes. This paper would suggest that Hunga-Tonga's SO2 emissions are consistent with a VEI=4 eruption, but don't quote me, I'm just arguing for patience until we actually have a proper estimate, which may take months. Mikenorton (talk) 20:34, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
An interesting paper that proposes a new method of estimating VEI and then goes on to suggest that the Hunga Tonga eruption was a VEI-6 event. However, like most brand new research, it's very early to be making use of an estimate based on it. I don't personally see how they get around issues with magma water interactions in this case. Mikenorton (talk) 19:31, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Hi Dora the Axe-plorer, I get that you think the short description I've added to this article is vague, but the one you insist should be kept basically reiterates what is already included in the article title, which is not what an s/d is supposed to do (did you read WP:Short description?) Can you find a way to improve the s/d instead? Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 15:45, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
I have considered your points... the article title already has the main idea of the rest of the story, agreed. The short desc would be retitled: "Volcanic event in the South Pacific Ocean". On the basis that "eruption and tsunami" is part of the title, "Volcanic event" summarizes the disaster well. The location would be slightly broadened to "South Pacific Ocean" because it defines the regional where this eruption occurred. I hope this change carefully considers our intentions. Thanks for understanding. Dora the Axe-plorer (explore the morgue) 16:12, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. HurricaneEdgar 15:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Not done - The 30 cm refers to the small tsunami wave observed following events on 14 January and that matches the cited source. Mikenorton (talk) 12:02, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Done - thanks for pointing that out - there's an option in the template to go from "C-change" to "F-change", which should have been used in this case. Mikenorton (talk) 21:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
