A small backyard, why plays such a big role？

Revealing the mystery of Science and Technology Backyard to promote the sustainable adoption of green production technology by smallholders

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HIGHER EDUCATION PRESS

 

IMAGE: NONE view more 

CREDIT: YAJUAN LI , QIANNI HUANG

As the important participants and decision makers in agricultural production, smallholders play a crucial role in food production. Smallholders’ low level of technology awareness and capacity leads to problems such as the insufficient technology adoption. Coupled with their poor risk tolerance and lack of trust in new technologies, makes them lack of the motivation to actively adopt green production technologies, which seriously hinders the green transformation of agriculture. What should be done to promote smallholders’adoption of green production technologies proactively? The existence of multiple socialized services and agricultural technology diffusion systems offers the possibility for this.

Existing production agriculture extension is divided into two distinct approaches: top-down and bottom-up modes. The former emphasizes scientists innovate technologies in laboratory and instill them into smallholders through organizations such as agricultural technology extension service centers (ATESC). This mode ignores smallholders’ motivation, and trust issues arising from the uneven quality of services became a crucial barrier to technology diffusion. The latter mode is mainly based on smallholders’ production technologies demand and socialized services, through participatory technological innovation, resulting in localized technologies and diffusion. However, because this approach requires high time and place for scientists and smallholders to learn together, it is less controllable and runs the risk of being a formality. We believe that an intimate partnership with smallholders is needed, while empowering them through zero-distance socialized services and stimulating their willingness to actively adopt green production technologies, to form a long-term mechanism for sustainable green production. A good example of this is the Science and Technology Backyard (STB) founded by the team of Prof. Fusuo Zhang of China Agricultural University. The teachers and graduate students of the STB are permanently rooted in the front line of rural production, forming a typical bottom-up approach to technological innovation through continuous interaction, learning and co-innovation with smallholders. This mode solves the problem of adaptive technological innovation and effectively promotes the application of green production technologies at different scale scales, but how to gradually realize the diffusion of technological innovation from the pilot areas to the regional level, is still unclear.

Therefore, the authors take the Wangzhuang STB in Quzhou, Hebei, China, as the research object, and explore how STB empower smallholders through participatory technology innovation and build their continuous trust through a socialized services mode with multi-entity participation, and promote the technology of participatory innovation in a collaborative, tree-shaped and jump-start diffusion modes promotes the diffusion of participatory technology innovation to different scales, such as farmers, villages and counties. This kind of technology diffusion based on STB empowers smallholders through zero-distance socialized services, and effectively solves the problem from technology innovation at the point to technology diffusion in the region, which is a highly applicable and practical technology innovation and diffusion mode and an effective way to promote the sustainable adoption of green production technologies by smallholders.

This study has been published on Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering in 2022, DOI: 10.15302/J-FASE-2022461

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Original article

Yajuan LI, Qianni HUANG. SMALLHOLDER ADOPTION OF GREEN PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES ON THE NORTH CHINA PLAIN: EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BACKYARDS. Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering [Published Online] https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2022461

 

About Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering

Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering (FASE) is an international journal, which is aimed to publish papers that advance the understanding of scientific, technological/engineering, socioeconomic, institutional/policy and management factors that drive current and future agricultural productivity and sustainability. Our goal is to use FASE as a platform to foster scientific information flow, stimulate transdisciplinary inquiries that have strong multi-disciplinary connections, and cultivate research and idea exchanges that address agricultural sustainability challenges regionally and globally.

FASE is an open-access journal published quarterly with no page charges. Contributions may include cutting-edge research, science news, commentaries, perspectives, or reviews. In addition to publishing regular review and research articles, the journal also publishes 'Hot Topic’issues that focus on strategically selected subject matter of high impact, or emerging concerns to address future agricultural development pathways at regional and global levels, and are guest-edited by scientists in their areas of research. Proposals for special issues are welcome and can be submitted any time.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering

DOI

10.15302/J-FASE-2022461 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

SMALLHOLDER ADOPTION OF GREEN PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES ON THE NORTH CHINA PLAIN: EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BACKYARDS

New study shows patient preference for medical cannabis products in the absence of clinical guidelines

New analysis of New York data finds considerable variability in patient product choice, even for patients with the same condition.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Due to a lack of publicly available data, understanding what products medical cannabis patients use for various conditions has mostly come from survey responses. In a new study, USC Schaeffer Center researchers established a clearer picture by analyzing point-of-sale data from nearly 17,000 patients who made more than 80,000 purchases as part of the New York state medical cannabis program.

The researchers found considerable variation in the products chosen for most medical conditions, and high variability in labeled doses of THC.

“While the medical cannabis market is not new, there is still relatively little research on patient purchasing behavior,” says Alexandra Kritikos, a postdoctoral research fellow in the USC Schaeffer Center and the USC Institute for Addiction Science. “Unfortunately, our analysis suggests that patients may not be getting consistent guidance from clinicians and pharmacists and, in many disease areas, there seems to be a lack of clear clinical data on appropriate dosing.”

The results, published in JAMA Network Open, rely on purchases made between 2016 and 2019 when cannabis flower and edibles could not be sold in the medical market. Cannabis card holders could purchase vape cartridges and pens, capsules and tablets, tinctures, lotions and suppositories.

Medical cannabis users purchase a range of products with varying potencies

Since its inception in 2014, New York’s medical cannabis program has grown to 150,000 participants, making it one of the largest in the nation.

Using data from an integrated single system of dispensaries, the researchers found that the top three conditions patients recorded on their medical card were chronic pain (52%), neuropathy (22%) and cancer (13%). In addition to a qualifying condition, patients also needed a qualifying symptom to register. The top qualifying symptoms were severe pain (82%), severe muscle spasms (21%) and severe nausea (8%).

Vaporizers were the most popular product purchased (40%), followed by tinctures (38%) and tablets (22%). In terms of potency, the majority of products purchased (52%) were high-THC, low-CBD products. High- THC products contained between 2 and 10 mg of THC per dose, depending on the product.

Given this variation, when patients chose different products, they presumably favored different dosing. For example, 41% of patients with chronic pain preferred a high-THC vaporizer, which delivered 2 mg of THC/0.1 mg of CBD per dose, while 33% of chronic pain patients chose tinctures and 25% chose tablets, both of which delivered 10 mg of THC per dose. Another quarter of chronic pain patients chose a product containing 5 mg of both THC and CBD.

In contrast, the majority of patients suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS and epilepsy purchased the same product, suggesting similar dosing.

Physicians need to take a more active role in patients using medical cannabis products

Earlier research found that electronic medical records frequently underreport the number of medical cannabis users. Combined with findings in the new Schaeffer Center study, the researchers suggest improving medical guidance and oversight of dosing.

“We suspect the lack of clinical guidelines on dosing of cannabinoids for particular medical conditions has made medical providers uncomfortable talking to their patients about their medical cannabis use,” says Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, senior author on both studies. “It is imperative that this change, as drug interactions with other prescribed medications are likely but impossible to identify if medical cannabis use is not considered or recorded in the medical record.” Pacula is a senior fellow at the Schaeffer Center and the Elizabeth Garrett Chair in Health Policy, Economics & Law at the USC Price School of Public Policy.

Pacula and Kritikos hope that their study provides a basis for conversations between providers and patients about cannabis use, including dosing levels.

Calls for caps in the recreational market will not limit access for medical cannabis patients

According to the labeled dosing, none of the most popular products analyzed for any of the conditions had dosing of more than 10 mg of THC, something policymakers should consider, say the researchers.

“We’ve seen the industry and media make the claim that putting caps on potency would limit access to necessary medicine,” Pacula says. “But our research in New York state suggests that medical cannabis users are consuming products that are less potent than what recreational users take.”

A white paper published by the Schaeffer Center in July discussed how policymakers could legalize recreational cannabis while still putting regulations in place that prioritize public health.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.27735 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Characterization of Cannabis Products Purchased for Medical Use in New York State

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Aug-2022

COI STATEMENT

Dr Kritikos reported receiving grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) during the conduct of the study and being an unpaid consultant for the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission on a legislative report. Dr Pacula reported receiving personal fees from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and serving on their Board of Scholars; receiving grants from the NIAAA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and receiving reimbursement for travel from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM); serving on a NASEM committee regarding CARA spending on opioids outside the submitted work; and serving on dissertation committees with the medical director of Columbia Care LLC, the medical cannabis company that provided access to the data. No other disclosures were reported.

Study: New model for predicting belief change

SANTA FE INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: BELIEF NETWORKS AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTERDEPENDENCE OVER MEASUREMENTS. view more 

CREDIT: JONAS DALEGE AND TAMARA VAN DER DOES

A new kind of predictive network model could help determine which people will change their minds about contentious scientific issues when presented with evidence-based information. 

A study in Science Advances presents a framework to accurately predict if a person will change their opinion about a certain topic. The approach estimates the amount of dissonance, or mental discomfort, a person has from holding conflicting beliefs about a topic. 

Santa Fe Institute Postdoctoral Fellows Jonas Dalege and Tamara van der Does built on previous efforts to model belief change by integrating both moral and social beliefs into a statistical physics framework of 20 interacting beliefs. 

They then used this cognitive network model to predict how the beliefs of a group of nearly 1,000 people, who were at least somewhat skeptical about the efficacy of genetically modified foods and childhood vaccines, would change as the result of an educational intervention.

Study participants were shown a message about the scientific consensus on genetic modification and vaccines. Those who began the study with a lot of dissonance in their interwoven network of beliefs were more likely to change their beliefs after viewing the messaging, but not necessarily in accordance with the message. On the other hand, people with little dissonance showed little change following the intervention.

“For example, if you believe that scientists are inherently trustworthy, but your family and friends tell you that vaccines are unsafe, this is going to create some dissonance in your mind,” van der Does says. “We found that if you were already kind of anti-GM foods or vaccines to begin with, you would just move more towards that direction when presented with new information even if that wasn’t the intention of the intervention.” 

While still in an early stage, the research could ultimately have important implications for communicating scientific, evidence-based information to the public. 

“On the one hand you might want to target people who have some dissonance in their beliefs, but at the same time this also creates some danger that they will reduce their dissonance in a way that you didn’t want them to,” Dalege says. “Moving forward, we want to expand this research to see if we can learn more about why people take certain paths to reduce their dissonance.”

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abm0137 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Using a Cognitive Network Model of Moral and Social Beliefs to Explain Belief Change

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Aug-2022

Harnessing the heart regeneration ability of marsupials

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RIKEN

 

IMAGE: THIS RESEARCH DISCOVERED THAT OPOSSUM HEARTS ARE ABLE TO REGENERATE 2 WEEKS AFTER BIRTH BECAUSE AMPK ACTIVITY WAS STILL INACTIVE. APPLYING THIS KNOWLEDGE TO MICE, RESEARCHERS WERE ABLE TO PROLONG THE PERIOD OF TIME THAT MOUSE HEARTS CAN REGENERATE AFTER BIRTH BY BLOCKING AMPK ACTIVITY. view more 

CREDIT: RIKEN

Wataru Kimura and colleagues at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) in Japan have discovered how the hearts of newborn marsupials retain the ability to regenerate for several weeks. Using this knowledge, the team was able to repair mouse hearts that were damaged a week after birth. The findings, published in the scientific journal Circulation, are expected to contribute to the development of regenerative heart medicines.

Heart disease is a leading cause of human death and is associated with numerous other secondary illnesses. For humans and other mammals, damaged heart muscle—such as occurs after a heart attack—cannot be naturally repaired because matured heart-muscle cells do not regenerate. As with all tissue regeneration, heart repair requires the birth of new cells, which can only happen through the process of cell division, when one cell becomes two. In most mammalian hearts, muscle-cell division remains possible just after birth, but disappears quickly after a couple days.

However, unlike other mammals, marsupials like kangaroos and koalas are born in an underdeveloped state and many of their internal organs continue to grow after birth, including their hearts. However, not much is known about their capacity for heart regeneration. The team at RIKEN BDR hypothesized that this post-natal heart growth is possible because marsupial heart-muscle cells retain the ability to divide, and that this would allow their hearts to regenerate after injury. They set out to test this theory in the opossum.

They observed that opossum hearts continued to grow for several weeks after birth. They found that the hearts of two-week-old opossums resembled those of one-day-old mice, and that opossum heart-muscle cells continued to divide for weeks after birth. Experimentally induced heart damage at this age repaired itself within a month, indicating that as long as heart cells continue to divide, the heart can be repaired. These results confirmed their hypothesis, and as Kimura notes, “cardiac regeneration for more than two weeks after birth in the opossum is the longest duration observed among mammals investigated to date.”

The next step was to figure out how this is possible in opossums but not mice. Gene-expression comparisons showed that two-week-old opossums were similar to mice that were only a few days old. The researchers next looked for changes in gene expression that occurred in both animals around the time that heart regeneration was no longer possible. The common factor was a protein called AMPK. Further experiments showed that activation of AMPK in both mice and opossums coincided with the stoppage of cell division in heart muscle. Therefore, the next hypothesis was that inhibiting AMPK or its ability to work could extend the period during which heart regeneration is possible. As Kimura explains, “if we could exploit the molecular pathway that determines the capacity for cardiac regeneration, we should be able to establish novel therapeutic approaches for treating cardiovascular disease.”

They tested this hypothesis in both opossums and mice, and were successful in both cases. In particular, injecting neo-natal mice with AMPK inhibitors allowed hearts that were experimentally damaged a week after birth to regenerate and regain normal function, with minimal scarring. Thus, the researchers were able to use what they learned from marsupials and induce heart regeneration in a regular mammal.

Next on the research agenda is figuring out what triggers AMPK expression at birth in mice but not in opossums. “One important and exciting question is how neonatal marsupials retain regenerative capacity in extrauterine environments, ” says Kimura. “The answers could lead to therapies that can induce heart regeneration in adults.”

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JOURNAL

Circulation

DOI

10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.055269 

ARTICLE TITLE

Prolonged myocardial regenerative capacity in neonatal opossum

Sharpest image ever of universe’s most massive known star

Groundbreaking observation from Gemini Observatory suggests this and possibly other colossal stars are less massive than previously thought

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY (AURA)

 

IMAGE: NESTLED IN THE CENTER OF THE TARANTULA NEBULA IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD IS THE LARGEST STAR YET DISCOVERED. WITH THE HELP OF THE ZORRO IMAGER AND THE POWER OF THE 8.1-METER GEMINI SOUTH TELESCOPE IN CHILE, ASTRONOMERS HAVE PRODUCED THE SHARPEST IMAGE EVER OF THIS STAR. THIS NEW IMAGE CHALLENGES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE MOST MASSIVE STARS AND SUGGESTS THAT THEY MAY NOT BE AS MASSIVE AS PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT. view more 

CREDIT: INTERNATIONAL GEMINI OBSERVATORY/NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA ACKNOWLEDGMENT: IMAGE PROCESSING: T.A. RECTOR (UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE/NSF’S NOIRLAB), M. ZAMANI (NSF’S NOIRLAB) & D. DE MARTIN (NSF’S NOIRLAB)

By harnessing the capabilities of the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile, which is part of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, astronomers have obtained the sharpest image ever of the star R136a1, the most massive known star in the Universe. Their research, led by NOIRLab astronomer Venu M. Kalari, challenges our understanding of the most massive stars and suggests that they may not be as massive as previously thought.

Astronomers have yet to fully understand how the most massive stars — those more than 100 times the mass of the Sun — are formed. One particularly challenging piece of this puzzle is obtaining observations of these giants, which typically dwell in the densely populated hearts of dust-shrouded star clusters. Giant stars also live fast and die young, burning through their fuel reserves in only a few million years. In comparison, our Sun is less than halfway through its 10 billion year lifespan. The combination of densely packed stars, relatively short lifetimes, and vast astronomical distances makes distinguishing individual massive stars in clusters a daunting technical challenge. 

By pushing the capabilities of the Zorro instrument on the Gemini South telescope of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, astronomers have obtained the sharpest-ever image of R136a1 — the most massive known star. This colossal star is a member of the R136 star cluster, which lies about 160,000 light-years from Earth in the center of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf companion galaxy of the Milky Way. 

Previous observations suggested that R136a1 had a mass somewhere between 250 to 320 times the mass of the Sun. The new Zorro observations, however, indicate that this giant star may be only 170 to 230 times the mass of the Sun. Even with this lower estimate, R136a1 still qualifies as the most massive known star. 

Astronomers are able to estimate a star's mass by comparing its observed brightness and temperature with theoretical predictions. The sharper Zorro image allowed NSF's NOIRLab astronomer Venu M. Kalari and his colleagues to more accurately separated the brightness of R136a1 from its nearby stellar companions, which led to a lower estimate of its brightness and therefore its mass.

“Our results show us that the most massive star we currently know is not as massive as we had previously thought,” explained Kalari, lead author of the paper announcing this result. “This suggests that the upper limit on stellar masses may also be smaller than previously thought.”

This result also has implications for the origin of elements heavier than helium in the Universe. These elements are created during the cataclysmicly explosive death of stars more than 150 times the mass of the Sun in events that astronomers refer to as pair-instability supernovae. If R136a1 is less massive than previously thought, the same could be true of other massive stars and consequently pair instability supernovae may be rarer than expected.

The star cluster hosting R136a1 has previously been observed by astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and a variety of ground-based telescopes, but none of these telescopes could obtain images sharp enough to pick out all the individual stellar members of the nearby cluster. 

Gemini South’s Zorro instrument was able to surpass the resolution of previous observations by using a technique known as speckle imaging, which enables ground-based telescopes to overcome much of the blurring effect of Earth’s atmosphere [1]. By taking many thousands of short-exposure images of a bright object and carefully processing the data, it is possible to cancel out almost all this blurring [2]. This approach, as well as the use of adaptive optics, can dramatically increase the resolution of ground-based telescopes, as shown by the team’s sharp new Zorro observations of R136a1 [3].

“This result shows that given the right conditions an 8.1-meter telescope pushed to its limits can rival not only the Hubble Space Telescope when it comes to angular resolution, but also the James Webb Space Telescope,” commented Ricardo Salinas, a co-author of this paper and the instrument scientist for Zorro. “This observation pushes the boundary of what is considered possible using speckle imaging.”

“We began this work as an exploratory observation to see how well Zorro could observe this type of object,” concluded Kalari. “While we urge caution when interpreting our results, our observations indicate that the most massive stars may not be as massive as once thought.”

Zorro and its twin instrument `Alopeke are identical imagers mounted on the Gemini South and Gemini North telescopes, respectively. Their names are the Hawaiian and Spanish words for “fox” and represent the telescopes’ respective locations on Maunakea in Hawai‘i and on Cerro Pachón in Chile. These instruments are part of the Gemini Observatory’s Visiting Instrument Program, which enables new science by accommodating innovative instruments and enabling exciting research. Steve B. Howell, current chair of the Gemini Observatory Board and senior research scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, is the principal investigator on both instruments. 

“Gemini South continues to enhance our understanding of the Universe, transforming astronomy as we know it. This discovery is yet another example of the scientific feats we can accomplish when we combine international collaboration, world-class infrastructure, and a stellar team,” said NSF Gemini Program Officer Martin Still. 

This comparison image shows the exceptional sharpness and clarity of the Zorro imager on the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile (left) when compared to an earlier image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (right). The new Gemini South image allowed astronomers to clearly distinguish the star R136a1 from its nearby stellar companions, providing the data needed to reveal that – while still the most massive star known in the Universe – it is less massive than previously thought.

CREDIT

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA Acknowledgment: Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab); NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

This is an illustration of R136a1, the largest known star in the Universe, which resides inside the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. By harnessing the capabilities of the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile, a team of astronomers has obtained the sharpest image ever of this colossal star.

CREDIT

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine

Notes

[1] The blurring effect of the atmosphere is what makes stars twinkle at night, and astronomers and engineers have devised a variety of approaches to dealing with atmospheric turbulence. As well as placing observatories at high, dry sites with stable skies, astronomers have equipped a handful of telescopes with adaptive optics systems, assemblies of computer-controlled deformable mirrors and laser guide stars that can correct for atmospheric distortion. In addition to speckle imaging, Gemini South is able to use its Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System to counteract the blurring of the atmosphere.

[2] The individual observations captured by Zorro had exposure times of just 60 milliseconds, and 40,000 of these individual observations of the R136 cluster were captured over the course of 40 minutes. Each of these snapshots is so short that the atmosphere didn’t have time to blur any individual exposure, and by carefully combining all 40,000 exposures the team could build up a sharp image of the cluster.

[3] When observing in the red part of the visible electromagnetic spectrum (about 832 nanometers), the Zorro instrument on Gemini South has an image resolution of about 30 milliarcseconds. This is slightly better resolution than NASA/ESA/CSA’s James Webb Space Telescope and about three-times sharper resolution achieved by the Hubble Space Telescope at the same wavelength. 

More information

This research was presented in the paper “Resolving the core of R136 in the optical” to appear in The Astrophysical Journal.

The team is composed of Venu M. Kalari (Gemini Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab and Departamento de Astronomia, Universidad de Chile), Elliott P. Horch (Department of Physics, Southern Connecticut State University), Ricardo Salinas (Gemini Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab), Jorick S. Vink (Armagh Observatory and Planetarium), Morten Andersen (Gemini Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab and the European Southern Observatory), Joachim M. Bestenlehner (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield), and Monica Rubio (Departamento de Astronomia, Universidad de Chile).

NSF’s NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O'odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

Links

• Research paper
• Photos Gemini South
• Videos of Gemini South

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/ac8424 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Resolving the core of R136 in the optical

Wave created by Tonga volcano eruption reached 90 meters - nine times taller than 2011 Japan tsunami

New research reveals more about the magnitude of January eruption, as researchers call for better preparedness

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

 

IMAGE: THE ERUPTION CREATED AN INITIAL WAVE 90 METRES HIGH view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Wave created by Tonga volcano eruption reached 90 metres - nine times taller than 2011 Japan tsunami

New research reveals more about the magnitude of January eruption, as researchers call for better preparedness

• The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in January created an initial wave 90 metres high – almost the height of the Statue of Liberty (93m)
• University of Bath tsunami expert calls for better warning systems to detect volcanic eruptions, saying systems are 30 years behind comparable earthquake detection tools

The initial tsunami wave created by the eruption of the underwater Hunga Tonga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga in January 2022 reached 90 metres in height, around nine times taller than that from the highly destructive 2011 Japan tsunami, new research has found.

An international research team says the eruption should serve as a wake-up call for international groups looking to protect people from similar events in future, claiming that detection and monitoring systems for volcano-based tsunamis are ’30 years behind’ comparable tools used to detect earthquake-based events.

Dr Mohammad Heidarzadeh, Secretary-General of the International Tsunami Commission and a senior lecturer in the University of Bath’s Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, authored the research alongside colleagues based in Japan, New Zealand, the UK and Croatia.

By comparison, the largest tsunami waves due to earthquakes before the Tonga event were recorded following the Tōhoku earthquake near Japan in 2011 and the 1960 Chilean earthquake, reached 10 metres in initial height. Those were more destructive as they happened closer to land, with waves that were wider.

Dr Heidarzadeh says the Tonga tsunami should serve as a wake-up call for more preparedness and understanding of the causes and signs of tsunamis cause by volcanic eruptions. He says: “The Tongan tsunami tragically killed five people and caused large scale destruction, but its effects could have been even greater had the volcano been located closer to human communities. The volcano is located approximately 70 km from the Tongan capital Nuku'alofa – this distance significantly minimized its destructive power.

“This was a gigantic, unique event and one that highlights that internationally we must invest in improving systems to detect volcanic tsunamis as these are currently around 30 years behind the systems we used to monitor for earthquakes. We are under-prepared for volcanic tsunamis.”

The research was carried out by analysing ocean observation data recordings of atmospheric pressure changes and sea level oscillations, in combination with computer simulations validated with real-world data.

The research team found that the tsunami was unique as the waves were created not only by the water displaced by the volcano’s eruption, but also by huge atmospheric pressure waves, which circled around the globe multiple times. This ‘dual mechanism’ created a two-part tsunami – where initial ocean waves created by the atmospheric pressure waves were followed more than one hour later by a second surge created by the eruption’s water displacement.

This combination meant tsunami warning centres did not detect the initial wave as they are programmed to detect tsunamis based on water displacements rather than atmospheric pressure waves.

The research team also found that the January event was among very few tsunamis powerful enough to travel around the globe – it was recorded in all world’s oceans and large seas from Japan and the United States’ western seaboard in the North Pacific Ocean to the coasts within the Mediterranean Sea.

The paper, co-authored by colleagues from New Zealand’s GNS Science, the Association for the Development of Earthquake Prediction in Japan, the University of Split in Croatia and at London’s Brunel University, was published this week in Ocean Engineering.

Dr Aditya Gusman, Tsunami Modeller at the New Zealand-based geoscience service, says: “The 2018 Anak Krakatau volcano and 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano eruptions clearly showed us that coastal areas surrounding volcano islands are at risk of being hit by destructive tsunamis. Although it may be preferable to have low-lying coastal areas completely clear from residential buildings, such a policy may not be practical for some places as volcanic tsunamis can be considered infrequent events.”

Co-author Dr Jadranka Šepić, from the University of Split, Croatia, adds: “What is important is to have efficient warning systems, which include both real-time warnings and education on what to do in a case of a tsunami or warning - such systems save lives. In addition, at volcanic areas, monitoring of volcanic activity should be organized, and more high-quality research into volcanic eruptions and areas at hazard is always a good idea.”

Separate research led by the University of Bath atmospheric physicist Dr Corwin Wright published in June found that the Tonga eruption triggered atmospheric gravity waves that reached the edge of space.

CAPTION

Snapshots of tsunami propagation at different times for the 15 January 2022 Tonga tsunami from our source model S6.

CREDIT

University of Bath

 

The paper Estimating the eruption-induced water displacement source of the 15 January 2022 Tonga volcanic tsunami from tsunami spectra and numerical modelling is published in Ocean Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.112165

For more information or to request an interview, contact Will McManus at the University of Bath at wem25@bath.ac.uk / press@bath.ac.uk or on +44 (0)1225 385798.

Images are available at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vyf5svynzk03mtx/AADjTY_3tpap-QemVwjOzPtja?dl=0

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JOURNAL

Ocean Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.112165 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Estimating the eruption-induced water displacement source of the 15 January 2022 Tonga volcanic tsunami from tsunami spectra and numerical modelling