Abstract
On the evening of 15 January 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano1 unleashed a violent underwater eruption, blanketing the surrounding land masses in ash and debris2,3. The eruption generated tsunamis observed around the world. An event of this type last occurred in 1883 during the eruption of Krakatau4, and thus we have the first observations of a tsunami from a large emergent volcanic eruption captured with modern instrumentation. Here we show that the explosive eruption generated waves through multiple mechanisms, including: (1) air–sea coupling with the initial and powerful shock wave radiating out from the explosion in the immediate vicinity of the eruption; (2) collapse of the water cavity created by the underwater explosion; and (3) air–sea coupling with the air-pressure pulse that circled the Earth several times, leading to a global tsunami. In the near field, tsunami impacts are strongly controlled by the water-cavity source whereas the far-field tsunami, which was unusually persistent, can be largely described by the air-pressure pulse mechanism. Catastrophic damage in some harbours in the far field was averted by just tens of centimetres, implying that a modest sea level rise combined with a future, similar event would lead to a step-function increase in impacts on infrastructure. Piecing together the complexity of this event has broad implications for coastal hazards in similar geophysical settings, suggesting a currently neglected source of global tsunamis.
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Data availability
All of the processed data, scripts used to create the Extended Data figures and examples of raw data processing used in this manuscript can be freely accessed at https://www.designsafe-ci.org/, referencing Data Depot project no. PRJ-3474 (https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-6hx4-ke44). Pressure data were provided by NOAA (https://noaa.gov), the Japan Meteorological Agency (https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/indexe.html), the Fiji Meteorological Service (https://www.met.gov.fj/) and the Tonga Meteorological Service (http://met.gov.to/). DART sensor data were provided by the New Zealand GeoNet project (https://www.geonet.org.nz/tsunami/dart) and the US National Data Buoy Center (https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/obs.shtml?lat=13&lon=-173&zoom=2&pgm=tsunami). Tide station records were provided by the Sea Level Station Monitoring Facility (https://www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org/).
Code availability
The model source code, simulation control and input files and output processing scripts for the COULWAVE simulations presented in this paper can be freely accessed at https://www.designsafe-ci.org/, referencing Data Depot project no. PRJ-3474 (https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-6hx4-ke44).
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Acknowledgements
The University of Southern California (USC) authors were supported by US NSF grant nos. CMMI-1661052, OCE-1830056 and ICER-1940315. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This article has been peer reviewed and approved for publication consistent with USGS Fundamental Science Practices (https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1367/). Any use of trade, firm or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government. A. Kumar, from the Fiji Meteorological Service, Climate Services Division, assisted in providing the authors with atmospheric pressure data from Fiji. M. Paea, of the Ha'atafu Beach Resort, provided the photographs shown in Fig. 2c,d. The team acknowledges the USC Center for Advanced Research Computing for the 0.5 million central processing unit hours used for this modelling effort.
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Contributions
P.L. was responsible for leading the overall team, developing the N-wave pressure pulse model and performing the numerical solutions. M.M. was responsible for performing the Ventura harbour field survey, organizing the manuscript and processing and curating the pressure time series data. Z.Z. was responsible for performing the Ventura harbour field survey, collecting observational data and creating visualizations with the model output. W.R. participated in the Ventura harbour field survey and collected and processed the DART and tide station data. J. Borrero., D.G., O.F. and C.B. collected reports and observations in the near field, processed New Zealand DART and tide station data and contributed to writing of the manuscript. B.J., S.L.S., A.R., A.S., B.N., J. Bolt. and N.G. completed the tsunami field survey of Santa Cruz harbour and surrounding areas, and processed the collected data. B.J., S.L.S. and A.R. contributed to writing of the manuscript. C.S. participated in delineation of source mechanisms and assisted in writing of the manuscript. B.E. and G.E.C. participated in the Ventura harbour field survey and assisted in writing of the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Fig. 1 Example wavelet analysis and filtered time series data.
a, b, Data for Wellington Harbor, New Zealand showing the (a) wavelet result derived from the (b) observed tide station data obtained from New Zealand’s GeoNet. In the wavelet analysis, note the horizontal banding of energy, indicating the excitation of the resonant modes of the harbor, and the clear increase in energy between 20:00 and 23:00 UTC. c, d, Data for DART NZG showing the (c) wavelet result derived from the (d) observed DART sensor data from GeoNet. The parabolic black lines found on the lower left and right corners of the wavelet plot denote areas of the wavelet surface that may suffer from tapering effects. The white areas identify times of no data from the sensor. The wavelet surface shows the energetic initial arrival of the tsunami with periods of 10–20 min near 05:00 UTC, followed by pulses of energy in the 3–5 min period range.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Time stack of the radially-sorted, window-averaged, and low-pass filtered GOES-17 satellite data.
Time series are given at numerous time-stamps on January 15, as given along the right edge of the figure. The peak of the (Lamb wave) pressure pulse crest for each time series is given by the red dots. The distance coordinate of the red dot in each time series divided by the time since generation yields the time-averaged pulse speed, while the difference in successive pulse crest locations divided by the time between the two images (10 min) gives the instantaneous speed of the pulse, or the celerity. GOES-17 data provided by NOAA.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Bulk calibration curve fits for the N-wave pressure pulse model.
a, Data (dots) and curve fit (lines) for time-averaged speed of the crest and trough, assuming a generation time of 04:15 UTC. b, Data (dots) and curve fit (lines) for crest amplitude of the pressure pulse. c, Data (dots) and curve fit (lines) for trough amplitude of the pressure pulse. Pressure data provided by NOAA, the Japan Meteorological Agency, the Fiji Meteorological Service, and the Tonga Meteorological Service.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Summary of modeled pressure time series comparisons with observed data.
a, b, c, Filtered observed data (blue lines) and model prediction (red dashed lines), where comparison location is given by the text, for (a) data stations in Tonga and Fiji, (b) data stations in New Zealand, and (c) various locations in the far-field. Note that the vertical pressure scale is given in the upper part of each column. Pressure data provided by NOAA, the Japan Meteorological Agency, the Fiji Meteorological Service, and the Tonga Meteorological Service.
Extended Data Fig. 5 DART sensor ocean-surface-elevation time series comparisons.
a, b, Filtered DART data (blue lines), model predictions (red line), and model predictions with pressure head from pressure pulse added (black line), where sensor name is given by the text, for (a) DART stations in the USA network, and (b) DART stations in the New Zealand network. The geographic location of these sensors is provided in Figure 3. Note that the vertical ocean surface elevation scale is given in the upper part of each column. DART data provided by NOAA and New Zealand’s GeoNet.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Tide station ocean-surface-elevation time series comparisons.
a, b, c, d, Filtered tide station data (blue lines) and model prediction (red lines) for (a) Apia, Samoa, (b) Niuatoputapu, Tonga, (c) Suva, Fiji, and (d) East Cape, New Zealand. The green circle denotes the arrival time of the crest of the pressure pulse. Tide station data retrieved from the Sea Level Monitoring Facility.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Video 1
Evolution of the tsunami across the Pacific Ocean. Supplementary Video 1 is an animation of the COULWAVE simulation results used to recreate the tsunamis generated by this event. The tsunami is represented by the white and dark areas on the ocean, indicating the tsunami crest and trough, respectively. The crest location of the pressure pulse is given by the magenta line, and the video shows the first 14 h after the main eruption. Viewers may interact with this animation through a high-resolution WebVR page (https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/zilizhou.com/lynett_coulwave_tonga.html) or at https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/zilizhou.com/lynett_coulwave_tonga_low_res.html (low resolution, for older computers and/or low bandwidth Internet connections; use this one if the above link is 'jumpy'). Users can interact with the WebVR scene by rotating the globe and zooming in and out, and can follow the tsunami as it travels across the Pacific Basin.
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Lynett, P., McCann, M., Zhou, Z. et al. Diverse tsunamigenesis triggered by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption. Nature 609, 728–733 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05170-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05170-6
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