@article{3eeccf20f95d4d8ebc10004a6fe6e631,
title = "The January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha{\textquoteright}apai volcano reached the mesosphere",
abstract = "Explosive volcanic eruptions can loft ash, gases, and water into the stratosphere, which affects both human activities and the climate. Using geostationary satellite images of the 15 January 2022 eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha{\textquoteright}apai volcano, we find that the volcanic plume produced by this volcano reached an altitude of 57 kilometers at its highest extent. This places the plume in the lower mesosphere and provides observational evidence of a volcanic eruption injecting material through the stratosphere and directly into the mesosphere. We then discuss potential implications of this injection and suggest that the altitude reached by plumes from previous eruptions, such as the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, may have been underestimated because of a lack of observational data.",
author = "Proud, \{Simon R.\} and Prata, \{Andrew T.\} and Simeon Schmau{\ss}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank J. Amos for the initial recognition that this eruption reached the mesosphere and acknowledge helpful discussions with E. Carboni and R. Grainger regarding the HTHH eruption and drafts of this paper. We also acknowledge the NOAA{\textquoteright}s Big Data Program for making GFS, GOES-17, and Himawari-8 data openly accessible; the Japan Meteorological Agency for its Himawari-8 data access; and the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) for making GEO-KOMPSAT-2A data available via its open application programming interface (API). We also thank the ECMWF for provision of the temperature vertical profile analysis used in this study. S.R.P.{\textquoteright}s work on this study was funded as part of NERC{\textquoteright}s support of the National Centre for Earth Observation, award ref. NE/R016518/1; and by a NERC Innovation fellowship, award ref. NE/R013144/1. A.T.P. was funded by NERC{\textquoteright}s support of the Radar-supported Next-Generation Forecasting of Volcanic Ash Hazard project, award ref. NE/S003843/1. Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved.",
year = "2022",
month = nov,
day = "4",
doi = "10.1126/science.abo4076",
language = "English",
volume = "378",
pages = "554--557",
journal = "Science",
issn = "0036-8075",
publisher = "American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)",
number = "6619",
}