The Tonga volcano mystery

It appears after sending a wave of tsunami warnings around the globe, this wasn't the only wave that this Volcano created.

Scientists are puzzled by a satellite infrared image that shows concentric circles arround the volcano,shortly after its eruption. They know what they are, but in the 20 years this particular satellite is up and running they never came across anything similar...

The eruption last Saturday of the Tonga volcano, which caused a tsunami warning on both sides of the Pacific and the disappearance of the island, sent some massive waves never seen in the Earth’s atmosphere. The phenomenon has puzzled scientists, who had never observed such a signal after a volcanic eruption.

linky

Let's hear your hypothesis, what are they? what caused them? and why haven't we ever observed anything similar?

More circumstantial evidence that this was not a volcanic eruption at all, but something else, like a nuclear event.

originally posted by: Salander
More circumstantial evidence that this was not a volcanic eruption at all, but something else, like a nuclear event.

I'm just guessing. A nuke would leave trace elements clearly leading back to who did it. There may be some way to get a small explosive deep enough to do the damage that was done without leaving any traces to be found.

a reply to: Kocag

I'm just guessing too, but if anybody is out in the South Pacific collecting samples for radiation levels we probably won't be informed about that.

I'm guessing that once again the conspiracy theorists will probably be right. A nuclear-tipped torpedo from Russia may be what happened, sent to show the nitwits in the Neocon Pentagon what could happen.

a reply to: Terpene

Alien undersea base going up with a bang.

a reply to: Terpene my interest has been piqued since that thread the other day showing something anomalous entering the water immediately before the eruption. I did like someone's theory that it was possibly a meteorite that could be seen. Maybe some kind of chemical composition reaction from the possible meteorite causing this?? Just a shot in the dark science was never my strong point. I can't see the logic of someone deliberately doing this because why tonga in particular?

MC

It did happen at La Palma remember?

www.washingtonpost.com...

Clouds over the La Palma volcanic eruption Friday looked like a logo for a Target store. A strange series of concentric circles formed over the volcano, captivating social media and eliciting the fascination of meteorologists and the public alike.

Very cool though!

a reply to: ColoradoTemplar

Your link does not take me anywhere. But the one they wonder about in this article are not cloud formations.


Eta:

Thanks for fixing the link, they do talk about the same thing( “gravity wave”) . Although the phenomenon in tonga looks very diffrent. Much more fast paced. I can imagining convection creating a pattern like la palma but this

a reply to: Terpene

Fixed link sorry. I think it would be caused because all that gas and pressure is coming from inside the Earth and out onto the surface of the planet and would have to go somewhere and add to our atmosphere so something of this magnitude would have to do something to the air pressure of the atmosphere.

a reply to: Terpene

Gravity waves within the atmosphere can be present with clouds (such as in the La Palma example above) or without clouds (such as in the Tonga example). Having clouds present just makes them easier to see and identify. The waves from Tonga look like textbook atmospheric gravity waves.

From your link in the opening post, my emphasis.

Theoretically, they can also be caused by the eruption of a volcano, but the truth is that nothing similar has been observed in other eruptions studied with the AIRS instrument since its launch in May 2002.

The Tonga eruption was the largest recorded since Mount Pinatubo, which was in 1991, and predating the instruments used to study the Tonga eruption.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

Good value add.

I wonder what the frequency is in la palma vs. Tonga seems incredibly high in tonga.

Why they call them gravity waves completely evades my understanding here

a reply to: Terpene

Air moves as a fluid, and can move both laterally and vertically. Gravity waves are caused by the sudden displacement of air vertically. They're essentially gravity trying to restore an equilibrium within the air.

You can create them yourself. Fill up your bathtub, drop something in. The waves that come from it, bouncing out from, against the sides, and back through each other until the equilibrium is reached are gravity waves.

That's the quick and dirty answer, anyway.

a reply to: Terpene


The volcano is in the ring of fire, they erupt.Volcanoes spew ash, debris, and gases into the atmosphere, some higher and more than others.

Nothing surprising about seeing this other than the first time in doing so, there is always a first time for everything. Now every time one blows they will have a better idea of what to look for.

Dollars to doughnuts if they go back and look harder at other images of eruptions they'll see some.

The 1st time I saw that satellite video of the eruption I though dang that looks like a nuclear bomb

Do we have any other satellite images of a volcano erupting that looks anything like that?

Wouldn't an eruption that large create smaller eruptions for days Not just one and done ?

a reply to: just4funagreed something shot into the ocean where that volcano was located, very bizarre footage
MC

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

It's confusing because of the gravity waves they talk about in astronomy.
this has nothing to do with it? Gravity is not waving its the medium that tries to restore equilibrium according to gravity?

I think all gaseous do move like liquids? It just looks incredibly fast paced and i wonder how such a shift spanning trough the whole atmosphere could happen in such a short moment with such a high frequency.

Maybe the picture in the article is misleading...

a reply to: Mysterychic88

My bad hit wrong reply button

a reply to: Ravenwatcher

It did, the original eruption started in Dec, stopped and started again in Jan.

From the wiki, Volcanic activity

After being relatively inactive since 2014,[5] the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted on 20 December 2021, sending particulates into the stratosphere. A large plume of ash was visible from Nukuʻalofa, the capital city of Tonga, about 70 km (43 mi) from the volcano.[6] The Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) in Wellington, New Zealand, issued an advisory notice to airlines.[7] This initial eruption ended at 02:00 on 21 December 2021.[6] Volcanic activity continued, and on 25 December 2021, the island had increased in size on satellite imagery.[8] As activity on the island decreased, it was declared dormant on 11 January 2022

A large eruption commenced on 14 January 2022 sending clouds of ash 20 km (12 mi) into the atmosphere.[11][12] The government of Tonga issued a tsunami warning to residents.[11] Tongan geologists near the volcano observed explosions and a 5 km (3.1 mi)-wide ash column.[13]

A much larger eruption started that day (14 January 2022) at 17:15 local time (04:14:45 UTC, 15 January).[14] The VAAC again issued an advisory notice to airlines.[15] Ash from the eruption made landfall on the main island of Tongatapu, blotting out the sun. Loud explosions were heard 65 km (40 mi) away in Nukuʻalofa, and small stones and ash rained down from the sky.[16] Many residents in Tonga were stuck in traffic whilst attempting to flee to higher ground.[17]

a reply to: Terpene

Gravity waves in a fluid are distinct from gravitational waves in space-time.

The gravity waves would be at a frequency relevant to the speed and volume of the air column that was displaced. This was a very large, possible even Ultra-Plinian eruption. It displaced a lot of air, very quickly.