Something Weird Happened 15 Minutes Before the Giant Tonga Eruption of 2022

A previously overlooked seismic signal portended the gargantuan volcanic eruption.

By Isaac Schultz

Published November 5, 2024 

A satellite image of the Tonga eruption.

Images: NASA Earth Observatory / Joshua Stevens / Lauren Dauphin / CALIPSO data from NASA/CNES, MODIS and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, and GOES imagery courtesy of NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)

Two years ago, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano blew its top, destroying the island of the same name, forcing mass evacuations, covering Tonga in ash, and causing several deaths. Predicting these sorts of natural disasters are exceedingly difficult, but a surprising new finding suggests some volcanoes give off a clue in the minutes preceding a cataclysmic eruption.

According to a team of researchers that reviewed some overlooked data from that data, the huge volcanic eruption that rocked the Pacific Ocean in 2022 was preceded by a seismic wave that shot across Earth’s surface. The data was collected by faraway seismometers, but the recent team posits that even those distant signals can help people prepare for future surprise eruptions.

Early warning systems for natural disasters—earthquakes, eruptions and tsunamis, as well as more predictable events like hurricanes, tornadoes, and typhoons—save lives. Any amount of notice is better than none, as even critical minutes of warning can make the difference between life and death.

“Early warnings are very important for disaster mitigation,” said study co-author Mie Ichihara, a volcanologist at the University of Tokyo, in an American Geophysical Union release. “Island volcanoes can generate tsunamis, which are a significant hazard.”

The team inspected seismometer data from stations in Fiji and Futuna—over 466 miles (750 kilometers) from the eruption. In that data, the researchers found a certain kind of surface-traveling seismic wave—called a Rayleigh wave—that emanated from the direction of the cataclysmic eruption about 15 minutes before the event itself. The Rayleigh wave was imperceptible to humans, but the seismometers had no problem picking it up.

“Referring to other seismic signals and satellite images, we concluded that the Rayleigh wave was the most significant eruption precursor with no apparent surface activity,” the researchers wrote in their work, published Monday in Geophysical Research Letters. “Including our findings and results of previous studies, we propose a scenario of the beginning of the caldera-forming eruption.”

The record-breaking eruption occurred on January 15, 2022. The eruption’s 36-mile-high (58-kilometer-high) volcanic plume was the largest ever recorded, and reached Earth’s mesosphere in just half an hour. The previous record-holder was the huge 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.

As the team notes, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai eruption was not preceded by any “apparent surface activity.” Consequently, the Rayleigh wave was the main indicator of the imminent destruction.

“When a usual earthquake occurs, seismic waves including the Rayleigh wave are instantaneously used to estimate the source parameters,” such as the epicenter, depth, magnitude, and mechanism, Ichihara told Gizmodo in an email. “Then, the source parameters are used to disseminate Tsunami early warning. However, there is no existing infrastructure to use the Rayleigh wave from an eruption precursor like the one identified in our article, though we believe it useful.”

“At the time of the eruption, we didn’t think of using this kind of analysis in real-time.”

In their paper, the researchers suggest that a fracture in the oceanic crust beneath the volcano’s caldera wall released the seismic wave detected in Fiji and Futuna. Then, magma from beneath the crust and ocean water above it poured into the volcano’s magma chamber beneath the surface, which caused the land above to collapse and kick off the eruption.

The team suggests that analyzing data from seismic stations located even hundreds of miles from an eruption can reveal the event before its worst impacts occur. “At the time of the eruption, we didn’t think of using this kind of analysis in real-time,” Ichihara said. “But maybe the next time that there is a significant eruption underwater, local observatories can recognize it from their data.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for Giant Tonga Eruption

 

Exceptional warm air intrusions and omnipresent aerosol layers in the stratosphere.

First results of one year of cloud research at the German polar station Neumayer III published.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS)

 

image: 

Clouds in Antarctica. Midnight sun at Christmas 2022 looking south "towards the South Pole".

view more 

Credit: Martin Radenz, TROPOS

Leipzig/Bremerhaven. Extremely clean air on the ground, warm air intrusions and sulphate aerosol at high altitudes - a Leipzig research project has gained new insights into clouds in Antarctica. From January to December 2023, the vertical distribution of aerosol particles and clouds in the atmosphere above the German Neumayer Station III of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) was investigated from the ground for the first time. The height-resolved measurements were the first of their kind in Queen Maud Land, the area of the Antarctic that borders the Atlantic and covers an area larger than Greenland.

The observations were performed with the OCEANET-Atmosphere platform from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS). OCEANET-Atmosphere demonstrated its robustness already while it was drifting in the Arctic for a whole year on the RV Polarstern during the international MOSAiC expedition 2019/20. During the 12 months of operation in Antarctica, the platform was supervised on-site by TROPOS scientist Martin Radenz. Initial results have now been published in the renowned journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). The measurements were funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and carried out in close co-operation with the AWI.

 

The Antarctic continent and the Southern Ocean are important components of the global climate system. While Antarctica's climate was considered relatively stable in the last century, significant changes are now being observed. Climate projections indicate that the interior of the Antarctic will warm by more than 3 Kelvin, the sea ice extent will decrease by around 30 per cent and precipitation will increase in the 21st century. However, such projections are subject to major uncertainties and the global atmospheric circulation models are not yet able to correctly reproduce the cloud cover and radiative forcing over the Southern Ocean. This incorrect representation of clouds leads to distorted estimates of thermal radiation and sea surface temperature, which are a prerequisite for estimating the energy fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere. In addition, in order to be able to document any change in an environment, such as Antarctica, also its current state needs to be documented as good as possible.

Gaining knowledge about cloud formation in Antarctica is an essential need, as this takes place differently in the clean air of the southern hemisphere than in the northern hemisphere with more abundant land surfaces. A second major source of uncertainty is the transport of moisture and particles from the mid-latitudes and subtropics to the pole. The relatively flat surface between the Weddell Sea and the South Pole might be a kind of highway for warm and humid air masses.

In order to learn more about the clouds in Antarctica, the instrumentation at the German research station Neumayer III of the AWI were supplemented by remote-sensing measurements such as an atmospheric lidar and a cloud radar for around a full year in the framework of the project COALA (Continuous Observations of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions in the Antarctic). The importance of the project was well recognized by the priority program ‘Antarctic Research’ of the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), which provided the funding for the endeavour. Carrier of the instrumentation was the TROPOS OCEANET-Atmosphere container. The platform had previously drifted through the Arctic for a year on RV Polarstern during the MOSAiC expedition led by AWI in 2019/20. " The MOSAiC observations allowed us to show for the first time that the atmosphere at the North Pole is more polluted than previously assumed. But what about over the Antarctic? Fortunately, we had the opportunity to operate our OCEANET container there for a year," explains Dr Ronny Engelmann from TROPOS. OCEANET was installed 300 meters south of the German Antarctic Neumayer Station III at the beginning of 2023. OCEANET-Atmosphere is an autonomous, polar-tested, specially equipped 20-foot container packed with state-of-the-art atmospheric observation equipment. It is currently the only polar-capable single container platform that combines multiwavelength lidar, a cloud radar, a microwave radiometer, and a Doppler lidar to observe clouds and aerosols, including turbulent air motions.

OCEANET was supplied with power from the research station, where the researcher from Leipzig also lived and spent a year making sure that all the devices measured without interruption: Dr Martin Radenz from TROPOS joined the station's core team. He was one of the 10 people who spent the winter in the dark polar night at Neumayer Station III. "Being able to spend a year in Antarctica with the community of our small team, the fascinating nature, snowstorms and isolation was a unique experience," reports Martin Radenz. The green laser beam of the multiwavelength lidar, which scanned the atmosphere above Neumayer Station III, was a novelty in this part of Antarctica. A lidar, also known as a "light radar", sends short laser pulses from the ground into the atmosphere and receives the backscattered light with a special receiver. Information about the height, quantity and type of suspended particles (aerosols) in the atmosphere can be derived from the travel time, intensity and polarisation of the backscattered signals. To date, related measurements with cloud radar and aerosol lidar have only been carried out at McMurdo station on the other side of Antarctica, 3500 kilometres away, bordering the Pacific Ocean. Contrary to Neumayer III on the ice shelf, the US McMurdo station there is built on rock. The researchers also hope that the measurements taken at Neumayer Station III over ice shelves will provide them with new insights into cloud formation over the vast expanses of ice in the Antarctic. "It is particularly pleasing that, following COALA, the AWI now permanently deploys similar remote sensing devices at Neumayer Station III in cooperation with TROPOS. This will make an important contribution to recording the short-lived climate components aerosols and clouds in the Antarctic," says Prof Andreas Macke, Director of TROPOS and Head of the "Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Processes" department.

In January 2024, the OCEANET container was dismantled, transported to the edge of the ice shelf and loaded onto the resupply vessel. The devices arrived in Leipzig in March, the DFG COALA project was completed and the researchers took stock: "All the devices held out and recorded valuable data. We are particularly pleased about this because it would have taken months for a replacement part to arrive during the polar night. Our experience from the MOSAiC expedition three years earlier in the Arctic was a great help. Nevertheless, it was a real challenge to make the devices storm-proof and clean them of snow almost every day," reports Martin Radenz. For Radenz and his team, however, the effort was worth it. The measurements provided three new insights into the Antarctic under climate change:

Atmosphere only clean close to the surface
The lidar measurements provided an insight into how many particles are floating above this part of Antarctica and at which altitudes. The lower part of the atmosphere (troposphere) with pristine conditions was mostly comparatively clean. In contrast, the team observed an unexpectedly large number of particles between an altitude of around 9 km and 17 km (stratosphere). "The optical properties of the aerosol derived from the lidar clearly indicate sulphate aerosol, which is mainly caused by volcanic eruptions. These aerosols were observed in the stratosphere since January 2023 and are therefore most likely related to the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai in January 2022," says Martin Radenz. "The fact that volcanic dust can persist for a very long time over the south polar region surprised us just as much as the forest fire smoke over the north polar region, which we were able to observe for the first time during the MOSAiC expedition in 2020," reports Ronny Engelmann. The lidar measurements from the ground are particularly important, as the volcanic aerosol over Antarctica has apparently not been observed sufficiently from space before. At least no aerosol was detectable in the standard products of NASA's CALIOP satellite lidar. Aerosol in the stratosphere has an influence on the occurrence of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), where complex chemical processes take place and which are suspected of contributing to the hole in the ozone layer over the polar regions.

Aerosol-cloud interaction in shallow mixed-phase clouds
While more aerosol was observed in the upper layers of the atmosphere than expected, the lower layers proved to be about as clean as assumed. The continuous measurements enabled the team to "watch" the clouds grow. For example, a stable mixed-phase cloud consisting of ice crystals and water droplets embedded in a layer of marine aerosol was observed for a period of 10 hours. "Our measurements confirm that practically all particles serve as cloud nuclei, to either form cloud droplets or ice crystals. Cloud growth is therefore limited by the amount of particles. If there were more particles, for example because more polluted air flows into the Antarctic, then there would also be more droplets and ice crystals in the clouds, which would change their lifespan and lead to yet unknown effects on weather and climate," explains Dr Patric Seifert from TROPOS.

Unusual warm air intrusions
Warm air from lower latitudes could intensify climate change in Antarctica. It was therefore important to be able to analyse two extreme warm air intrusions in detail: One with intense snowfall in April, which brought 10 per cent of the snowfall of an entire year, and a second with record-breaking maximum temperatures and heavy ground icing due to supercooled drizzle in July. During this warm spell, the temperature rose to -2.3 degrees Celsius on 6 July 2023. "This is the highest temperature recorded in July at the German Antarctic Neumayer Station since continuous observations began in 1982. This means that it has never been so warm there in the middle of the polar night, the peak of the Antarctic winter," explains Martin Radenz. These unusually high temperatures led to supercooled drizzle. On the surface, a layer of clear ice of around 2 millimetres formed on top of the snow from the previous day. "What often happens here in Central Europe in winter is very unusual for the Antarctic during the dark polar night. Normally, temperatures at Neumayer Station III are below -30 degrees Celsius in July. Our observations over ice shelves are the first of their kind," emphasizes Radenz.

It took not long until the value of the remote sensing measurements was also recognized by the Alfred Wegener Institute that operates the Neumayer station. The deployment of OCEANET-Atmosphere was only the start of a long-term time series of profile measurements in this part of Antarctica: at the beginning of 2024, the Alfred Wegener Institute expanded the permanent observation capacities with a lidar and radar, thus ensuring that the unique OCEANET data set is continued. “The long-term climatology of aerosol and cloud parameters for the Neumayer station will thus be permanently extended to the vertical dimension," explains Dr Holger Schmithüsen from AWI.

The provision of an overview of the obtained results in the BAMS journal demonstrates the potential of the 1-year dataset for shedding light on the still barely characterized properties of clouds and aerosols above Antarctica. “But the BAMS article only provides a first glimpse into the highlights obtained during the measurements. Detailed statistics and process studies will follow in a subsequent step,” says Radenz. Over the next few months, the extensive data from Antarctica will be further analysed and compared with existing data sets from southern Chile, Cyprus, Germany and the Arctic. The researchers hope to gain new insights into why the clouds in the far south differ so much from those in the northern hemisphere. Plenty of datasets from key-regions of climate research are available for a comparison. As part of the DFG Transregio "Arctic Amplification" (AC3-TR), TROPOS has been investigating clouds in the Arctic together with the University of Leipzig since 2016. In addition, processes in the southern hemisphere have also become the focus of attention in recent years: in 2016/17, cloud researchers from Leipzig took part in the international Antarctic circumnavigation ACE. In 2018-2021, extensive measurements took place in southern Chile. Two major measurement campaigns in and around New Zealand are currently being prepared for 2025 and 2026: goSouth at the southern tip of the South Island, accompanied by HALO-South with the German research aircraft HALO and an expedition around New Zealand with the research vessel Sonne are the placemarks of the next series of experiments under the lead of TROPOS. "TROPOS is about to contribute important novel insights for improving the understanding of aerosol-cloud-climate processes in the clean and maritime southern hemisphere," concludes Prof Andreas Macke.

Tilo Arnhold

Twilight over Antarctica.

Credit

Martin Radenz, TROPOS

 

COALA-3 (IMAGE)

Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS)

Aurora Australis above the OCEANET container at the German research station Neumayer III in Antarctica.

Credit

Martin Radenz, TROPOS

COALA-4 [VIDEO] | 

The observations were performed with the OCEANET-Atmosphere platform from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS).

Journal

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

DOI

10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0285.1 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Ground-Based Remote Sensing of Aerosol, Clouds, Dynamics, and Precipitation in Antarctica: First Results from the 1-Year COALA Campaign at Neumayer Station III in 2023

 

Exceptional warm air intrusions and omnipresent aerosol layers in the stratosphere.

First results of one year of cloud research at the German polar station Neumayer III published.

Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS)

 

image: 

Clouds in Antarctica. Midnight sun at Christmas 2022 looking south "towards the South Pole".

view more 

Credit: Martin Radenz, TROPOS

Leipzig/Bremerhaven. Extremely clean air on the ground, warm air intrusions and sulphate aerosol at high altitudes - a Leipzig research project has gained new insights into clouds in Antarctica. From January to December 2023, the vertical distribution of aerosol particles and clouds in the atmosphere above the German Neumayer Station III of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) was investigated from the ground for the first time. The height-resolved measurements were the first of their kind in Queen Maud Land, the area of the Antarctic that borders the Atlantic and covers an area larger than Greenland.

The observations were performed with the OCEANET-Atmosphere platform from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS). OCEANET-Atmosphere demonstrated its robustness already while it was drifting in the Arctic for a whole year on the RV Polarstern during the international MOSAiC expedition 2019/20. During the 12 months of operation in Antarctica, the platform was supervised on-site by TROPOS scientist Martin Radenz. Initial results have now been published in the renowned journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). The measurements were funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and carried out in close co-operation with the AWI.

 

The Antarctic continent and the Southern Ocean are important components of the global climate system. While Antarctica's climate was considered relatively stable in the last century, significant changes are now being observed. Climate projections indicate that the interior of the Antarctic will warm by more than 3 Kelvin, the sea ice extent will decrease by around 30 per cent and precipitation will increase in the 21st century. However, such projections are subject to major uncertainties and the global atmospheric circulation models are not yet able to correctly reproduce the cloud cover and radiative forcing over the Southern Ocean. This incorrect representation of clouds leads to distorted estimates of thermal radiation and sea surface temperature, which are a prerequisite for estimating the energy fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere. In addition, in order to be able to document any change in an environment, such as Antarctica, also its current state needs to be documented as good as possible.

Gaining knowledge about cloud formation in Antarctica is an essential need, as this takes place differently in the clean air of the southern hemisphere than in the northern hemisphere with more abundant land surfaces. A second major source of uncertainty is the transport of moisture and particles from the mid-latitudes and subtropics to the pole. The relatively flat surface between the Weddell Sea and the South Pole might be a kind of highway for warm and humid air masses.

In order to learn more about the clouds in Antarctica, the instrumentation at the German research station Neumayer III of the AWI were supplemented by remote-sensing measurements such as an atmospheric lidar and a cloud radar for around a full year in the framework of the project COALA (Continuous Observations of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions in the Antarctic). The importance of the project was well recognized by the priority program ‘Antarctic Research’ of the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), which provided the funding for the endeavour. Carrier of the instrumentation was the TROPOS OCEANET-Atmosphere container. The platform had previously drifted through the Arctic for a year on RV Polarstern during the MOSAiC expedition led by AWI in 2019/20. " The MOSAiC observations allowed us to show for the first time that the atmosphere at the North Pole is more polluted than previously assumed. But what about over the Antarctic? Fortunately, we had the opportunity to operate our OCEANET container there for a year," explains Dr Ronny Engelmann from TROPOS. OCEANET was installed 300 meters south of the German Antarctic Neumayer Station III at the beginning of 2023. OCEANET-Atmosphere is an autonomous, polar-tested, specially equipped 20-foot container packed with state-of-the-art atmospheric observation equipment. It is currently the only polar-capable single container platform that combines multiwavelength lidar, a cloud radar, a microwave radiometer, and a Doppler lidar to observe clouds and aerosols, including turbulent air motions.

OCEANET was supplied with power from the research station, where the researcher from Leipzig also lived and spent a year making sure that all the devices measured without interruption: Dr Martin Radenz from TROPOS joined the station's core team. He was one of the 10 people who spent the winter in the dark polar night at Neumayer Station III. "Being able to spend a year in Antarctica with the community of our small team, the fascinating nature, snowstorms and isolation was a unique experience," reports Martin Radenz. The green laser beam of the multiwavelength lidar, which scanned the atmosphere above Neumayer Station III, was a novelty in this part of Antarctica. A lidar, also known as a "light radar", sends short laser pulses from the ground into the atmosphere and receives the backscattered light with a special receiver. Information about the height, quantity and type of suspended particles (aerosols) in the atmosphere can be derived from the travel time, intensity and polarisation of the backscattered signals. To date, related measurements with cloud radar and aerosol lidar have only been carried out at McMurdo station on the other side of Antarctica, 3500 kilometres away, bordering the Pacific Ocean. Contrary to Neumayer III on the ice shelf, the US McMurdo station there is built on rock. The researchers also hope that the measurements taken at Neumayer Station III over ice shelves will provide them with new insights into cloud formation over the vast expanses of ice in the Antarctic. "It is particularly pleasing that, following COALA, the AWI now permanently deploys similar remote sensing devices at Neumayer Station III in cooperation with TROPOS. This will make an important contribution to recording the short-lived climate components aerosols and clouds in the Antarctic," says Prof Andreas Macke, Director of TROPOS and Head of the "Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Processes" department.

In January 2024, the OCEANET container was dismantled, transported to the edge of the ice shelf and loaded onto the resupply vessel. The devices arrived in Leipzig in March, the DFG COALA project was completed and the researchers took stock: "All the devices held out and recorded valuable data. We are particularly pleased about this because it would have taken months for a replacement part to arrive during the polar night. Our experience from the MOSAiC expedition three years earlier in the Arctic was a great help. Nevertheless, it was a real challenge to make the devices storm-proof and clean them of snow almost every day," reports Martin Radenz. For Radenz and his team, however, the effort was worth it. The measurements provided three new insights into the Antarctic under climate change:

Atmosphere only clean close to the surface
The lidar measurements provided an insight into how many particles are floating above this part of Antarctica and at which altitudes. The lower part of the atmosphere (troposphere) with pristine conditions was mostly comparatively clean. In contrast, the team observed an unexpectedly large number of particles between an altitude of around 9 km and 17 km (stratosphere). "The optical properties of the aerosol derived from the lidar clearly indicate sulphate aerosol, which is mainly caused by volcanic eruptions. These aerosols were observed in the stratosphere since January 2023 and are therefore most likely related to the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai in January 2022," says Martin Radenz. "The fact that volcanic dust can persist for a very long time over the south polar region surprised us just as much as the forest fire smoke over the north polar region, which we were able to observe for the first time during the MOSAiC expedition in 2020," reports Ronny Engelmann. The lidar measurements from the ground are particularly important, as the volcanic aerosol over Antarctica has apparently not been observed sufficiently from space before. At least no aerosol was detectable in the standard products of NASA's CALIOP satellite lidar. Aerosol in the stratosphere has an influence on the occurrence of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), where complex chemical processes take place and which are suspected of contributing to the hole in the ozone layer over the polar regions.

Aerosol-cloud interaction in shallow mixed-phase clouds
While more aerosol was observed in the upper layers of the atmosphere than expected, the lower layers proved to be about as clean as assumed. The continuous measurements enabled the team to "watch" the clouds grow. For example, a stable mixed-phase cloud consisting of ice crystals and water droplets embedded in a layer of marine aerosol was observed for a period of 10 hours. "Our measurements confirm that practically all particles serve as cloud nuclei, to either form cloud droplets or ice crystals. Cloud growth is therefore limited by the amount of particles. If there were more particles, for example because more polluted air flows into the Antarctic, then there would also be more droplets and ice crystals in the clouds, which would change their lifespan and lead to yet unknown effects on weather and climate," explains Dr Patric Seifert from TROPOS.

Unusual warm air intrusions
Warm air from lower latitudes could intensify climate change in Antarctica. It was therefore important to be able to analyse two extreme warm air intrusions in detail: One with intense snowfall in April, which brought 10 per cent of the snowfall of an entire year, and a second with record-breaking maximum temperatures and heavy ground icing due to supercooled drizzle in July. During this warm spell, the temperature rose to -2.3 degrees Celsius on 6 July 2023. "This is the highest temperature recorded in July at the German Antarctic Neumayer Station since continuous observations began in 1982. This means that it has never been so warm there in the middle of the polar night, the peak of the Antarctic winter," explains Martin Radenz. These unusually high temperatures led to supercooled drizzle. On the surface, a layer of clear ice of around 2 millimetres formed on top of the snow from the previous day. "What often happens here in Central Europe in winter is very unusual for the Antarctic during the dark polar night. Normally, temperatures at Neumayer Station III are below -30 degrees Celsius in July. Our observations over ice shelves are the first of their kind," emphasizes Radenz.

It took not long until the value of the remote sensing measurements was also recognized by the Alfred Wegener Institute that operates the Neumayer station. The deployment of OCEANET-Atmosphere was only the start of a long-term time series of profile measurements in this part of Antarctica: at the beginning of 2024, the Alfred Wegener Institute expanded the permanent observation capacities with a lidar and radar, thus ensuring that the unique OCEANET data set is continued. “The long-term climatology of aerosol and cloud parameters for the Neumayer station will thus be permanently extended to the vertical dimension," explains Dr Holger Schmithüsen from AWI.

The provision of an overview of the obtained results in the BAMS journal demonstrates the potential of the 1-year dataset for shedding light on the still barely characterized properties of clouds and aerosols above Antarctica. “But the BAMS article only provides a first glimpse into the highlights obtained during the measurements. Detailed statistics and process studies will follow in a subsequent step,” says Radenz. Over the next few months, the extensive data from Antarctica will be further analysed and compared with existing data sets from southern Chile, Cyprus, Germany and the Arctic. The researchers hope to gain new insights into why the clouds in the far south differ so much from those in the northern hemisphere. Plenty of datasets from key-regions of climate research are available for a comparison. As part of the DFG Transregio "Arctic Amplification" (AC3-TR), TROPOS has been investigating clouds in the Arctic together with the University of Leipzig since 2016. In addition, processes in the southern hemisphere have also become the focus of attention in recent years: in 2016/17, cloud researchers from Leipzig took part in the international Antarctic circumnavigation ACE. In 2018-2021, extensive measurements took place in southern Chile. Two major measurement campaigns in and around New Zealand are currently being prepared for 2025 and 2026: goSouth at the southern tip of the South Island, accompanied by HALO-South with the German research aircraft HALO and an expedition around New Zealand with the research vessel Sonne are the placemarks of the next series of experiments under the lead of TROPOS. "TROPOS is about to contribute important novel insights for improving the understanding of aerosol-cloud-climate processes in the clean and maritime southern hemisphere," concludes Prof Andreas Macke.

Tilo Arnhold

  

Twilight over Antarctica.

Aurora Australis above the OCEANET container at the German research station Neumayer III in Antarctica.

Credit

Martin Radenz, TROPOS

COALA-4 [VIDEO] | 

Journal

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

DOI

10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0285.1 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Ground-Based Remote Sensing of Aerosol, Clouds, Dynamics, and Precipitation in Antarctica: First Results from the 1-Year COALA Campaign at Neumayer Station III in 2023

Pacific leaders confront ‘polycrisis’ of rising seas and climbing tensions


By AFP
August 23, 2024

Pacific Islands Forum head Baron Waqa has warned the US and China to take their geopolitical 'fight' out of 'our backyard' - Copyright AFP Yuichi YAMAZAKI

Pacific island leaders gather for a key summit in the Kingdom of Tonga on Monday, aiming to navigate rapidly rising seas, damaging great power rivalries and violent unrest in New Caledonia.

This year’s Pacific Islands Forum takes place in Nuku’alofa, a breezy coastal capital still finding its feet after a calamitous volcanic eruption and tsunami in 2022.

Since they last met, the forum’s 18 scattered members have been buffeted by economic headwinds and escalating competition between the United States and China.

But is the encroaching peril of climate change that is expected to sit highest on the agenda.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres will make a rare appearance at the forum, throwing his weight behind Pacific leaders mounting a renewed climate call to arms.

Once seen as the embodiment of palm-fringed paradise, the South Pacific now occupies one of the most climate-threatened pockets of the planet.

Low-lying nations such as Tuvalu could be almost entirely swallowed by rising oceans within the next 30 years.

“Climate change, as ever, remains the top-line priority for leaders,” said Mihai Sora, director of Pacific research at Australia’s Lowy Institute.

“I think the presence of the UN secretary-general is intended to attract that international interest, to put pressure on international partners.”

It is potentially awkward terrain for forum member Australia, a coal-shovelling mining heavyweight belatedly trying to burnish its green credentials.

Australia wants to co-host the COP31 climate conference alongside its Pacific neighbours in 2026.

But first, it must convince the bloc it is serious about slashing emissions.



– Pacific ‘polycrisis’ –



It will be the first meeting under new forum boss Baron Waqa, who has warned China and the United States to take their “fight” out of “our backyard”.

Beijing has been determinedly courting Pacific nations, using its largesse to build government offices, sporting venues, hospitals, highways and more.

Fearful that China could spin this into a permanent military presence, the United States and Australia have responded by dishing out aid, inking bilateral agreements and re-opening long-dormant embassies.

“China has significantly increased its engagement efforts in the Pacific in recent years, particularly aimed at the security sector,” said Kathryn Paik, a former Pacific expert on US President Joe Biden’s National Security Council.

“As Chinese interest in the region amplifies, however, the US, Australia and other like-minded partners are ever-more focused on ensuring that China does not obtain a military foothold.”

Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has described the cocktail of geopolitical tensions and pressing climate threats as a “polycrisis” in the making.



– French diss –



The unresolved crisis in French territory New Caledonia, a full forum member, also looms large this year.

The Pacific Islands Forum has been trying to send a team of observers to take the pulse in New Caledonia’s riot-crippled capital Noumea.

But the fact-finding mission fell apart on the eve of the summit as squabbling officials failed to agree on terms.

Much of New Caledonia’s ethnically Melanesian Kanak population fears that voting reforms proposed by Paris could forever crush their dreams of independence.

It is a cause that resonates widely in the Pacific bloc, which is stacked with former colonies now fiercely proud of their hard-won sovereignty.

“There’s a lot of concern about the way France is behaving in New Caledonia,” said Tess Newton Cain from the Griffith Asia Institute.

“The French rhetoric is really causing some concern among the forum’s leadership.”



– Dog days are over –



A parade of premiers, ambassadors and business moguls have been drawn to Nuku’alofa, meaning “abode of love”, the seat of the Tongan king.

Just finding enough beds for delegates has proved an immense logistical challenge.

Many of Nuku’alofa’s seaside hotels were levelled by a tsunami in 2022, triggered by the immense Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption.

To plug the gap, Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni has urged the city’s 20,000 residents to throw open their doors and dust off their spare beds.

The city’s roaming posses of not-always-friendly stray dogs have posed another headache.

A team of veterinarians has been sent from nearby Fiji to round up and neuter homeless hounds scratching around the conference venue and main hotels.

Forum preparations have not escaped the gaze of jostling foreign powers either.

Teams of labourers have worked around the clock to finish the summit venue, a $25 million gift from Beijing.

China has also offered 20 motorcycles and “motorcade training” to help Tonga’s police corral officials.

Not to be outdone, Australia has offered Tonga 25 police vehicles, two mini-buses and its own squad of security advisers.

SPACE

NASA continues to delay return of Boeing Starliner, astronauts from ISS

By Ehren Wynder


 The Boeing Starliner Spacecraft docked to the International Space Station on June 5 for what was supposed to be a weeklong mission. Photo courtesy NASA/UPI | License Photo

July 25 (UPI) -- There still is no return date set for the Starliner astronauts aboard the International Space Station, officials with NASA and Boeing said Thursday.

NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich in a conference call Thursday morning said the agency has made significant progress in assessing the Starliner's return capability but there is no official plan to bring the astronauts home.

"We don't have a major announcement today relative to a return date. We're making great progress, but we're just not quite ready to do that," he said.

Stich said NASA needs to first conduct a review that won't happen until the first week of August before the agency can consider a return date

It has now been almost two months since astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams docked to the ISS on June 5 for what was supposed to be a weeklong mission to test Boeing's long-delayed Starliner spacecraft.

The troubled mission has gone through numerous technical and software-related issues, which delayed it by about four years.

In the weeks leading up to its fateful launch, Starliner experienced issues with a vibrating oxygen valve and a small but persistent helium leak. After liftoff, the crew identified several other helium leaks, as well as failures of the reaction control system thrusters.

Boeing and NASA, meanwhile, have been troubleshooting copies of the malfunctioning RCS thrusters at a facility in White Sands, N.M. Stich on Thursday's call said the tests revealed a "bit of a bulge" in the Teflon seal, which was consistent with in-flight observations.

Boeing Vice President and Commercial Crew Program Manager Mark Nappi said in the call that the Starliner service module in White Sands had been exposed to propellant for about three years, "so it was a really good test case to go and do some leak checks on and then take that hardware apart.

"We did those leak checks. We found leaks," he said.

Nappi added the team will continue to test-fire the thrusters this weekend.

"The last several weeks have been really useful in understanding thruster and helium anomalies and how to address these problems for future flights," he said. "That's been the real goal here."

When asked about whether NASA had a contingency plan to bring the Starliner astronauts home, Stich said the agency has considered SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, but the focus has been on returning Boeing's craft to Earth.

"Obviously the backup option is to use a different system. I would rather not go into all those details until we get to that time -- if we ever get to that time," Stitch said. "We really have our team focused on, as we close in on this final flight rationale, returning Butch and Suni on Starliner."

SpaceX, which along with Boeing is contracted under NASA's Commercial Crew Program, ran into its own issue earlier this month when its highly successful Falcon 9 rocket suffered an anomaly that resulted in the loss of a payload of 20 Starlink satellites.

The rocket had over 300 successful launches and only three failures since its debut in 2015.

The most recent failure, besides being a stain on Falcon's otherwise illustrious track record, highlighted NASA's vulnerability in having just two vendors.

"It reminds other potential customers that it's in their interest for there to be multiple providers," astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell said in an interview with Space.com.

"Maybe they should give some launches to some of SpaceX's rivals, even if they're not the cheapest, just to maintain the alternative, if SpaceX has another downtime."

Boeing and NASA have repeatedly insisted that Wilmore and Williams are not "stranded" in space and that their extended stay aboard the ISS was to gather more data about the Starliner.

The astronauts, for their part, have remained optimistic. Wilmore earlier this month said in a press conference broadcasted from the ISS that they are "absolutely confident" in Starliner's capability.

"I feel confident that, if we had to, if there was a problem with the International Space Station, we would get in [the Starliner spacecraft] and we could undock, talk to our team, and figure out the best way to come home," he said.

NASA and Boeing, however, haven't been able to ward off the bad publicity. The Atlantic writer Marina Koren in an article titled "NASA Should Ditch the Spin" said NASA bears responsibility "for its uneven supervision of Starliner's development leading up to launch and its overly guarded communications to the public since, which have done more to fan rumors about the state of the mission than dispel them."

Boeing already is under intense scrutiny for abandoning safety and quality control protocols after a fuselage blowout on an Alaskan Airlines jet in January.

NASA's ICON mission ends with critical breakthroughs on Earth, space weather


NASA's ICON, shown in this artist’s concept, studied the dynamic zone high in the atmosphere where terrestrial weather from below meets space weather above. On Wednesday, NASA announced the mission's official end. 

Photo courtesy of NASA/Goddard/Conceptual Image Lab

July 24 (UPI) -- Nearly five years after it launched, NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer -- or ICON -- mission has officially come to an end, the space agency announced Wednesday.

NASA's ICON mission gathered valuable data as it orbited the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere, about 55 miles to 360 miles into space in the ionosphere, and provided critical breakthroughs on how space weather affects Earth's weather.

"The ICON mission has truly lived up to its name," said Joseph Westlake, heliophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. "Not only did ICON successfully complete and exceed its primary mission objectives, it also provided critical insights into the ionosphere and the interplay between space and terrestrial weather."

After successfully advancing our understanding of Earth's interface to space, the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission has come to an end.

"The ICON mission has truly lived up to its name," said Joe Westlake, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division. pic.twitter.com/yhpHitEZ3C— NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) July 24, 2024

While ICON launched in October 2019 and accomplished its primary mission over the next two years, NASA lost communication with the specially equipped satellite in November 2022 and was forced to conclude the mission following several months of troubleshooting.

"ICON's legacy will live on through the breakthrough knowledge it provided while it was active and the vast dataset from its observations that will continue to yield new science," Westlake said. "ICON serves as a foundation for new missions to come."

Despite the setback, ICON had already gathered new details on airglow, information on the relationship between the atmosphere's ions and Earth's magnetic field lines, and the first concrete observation to confirm Earth's ionospheric dynamo.

NASA scientists were able to study the ionosphere's effect on satellites and radio signals through ICON, which impact communications with the International Space Station, while also tracking the colorful bands of airglow.

"It's like measuring a train's speed by detecting the change in the pitch of its horn -- but with light," said Thomas Immel, ICON mission lead at the University of California, Berkeley.

ICON also captured data on how the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption, under the southern Pacific Ocean, disrupted electrical currents in the ionosphere.

"ICON was able to capture the speed of the volcanic eruption, allowing us to directly see how it affected the motion of charged particles in the ionosphere," Immel said.

"This was a clear example of the connection between tropical weather and ionospheric structure. ICON showed us how things that happen in terrestrial weather have a direct correlation with events in space."

NASA telescope spots a super Jupiter that takes more than a century to go around its star




This illustration provided by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in July 2024 depicts a cold gas giant orbiting a red dwarf. Scientists had long suspected a big planet orbited the star Epsilon Indi A, but not this massive or far from its star. An international team led by Max Planck Institute for Astronomy’s Elisabeth Matthews in Germany collected the images in 2023 and published their findings Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in the journal Nature. (T. Müller (MPIA/HdA) via AP)

This image provided by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in July 2024 shows the exoplanet Epsilon Indi A b captured in different infrared wavelengths by the James Webb Space Telescope. Light from the star Epsilon Indi A, whose position is indicated by star symbols, is blocked by a coronagraph allowing the orbiting planet to be visible. An international team led by Max Planck Institute for Astronomy’s Elisabeth Matthews in Germany collected the images in 2023 and published their findings Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in the journal Nature. (T. Müller (MPIA/HdA), E. Matthews (MPIA) via AP)

BY MARCIA DUNN

 July 24, 2024

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A super Jupiter has been spotted around a neighboring star by the Webb Space Telescope — and it has a super orbit.

The planet is roughly the same diameter as Jupiter, but with six times the mass. Its atmosphere is also rich in hydrogen like Jupiter’s.

One big difference: It takes this planet more than a century, possibly as long as 250 years, to go around its star. It’s 15 times the distance from its star than Earth is to the sun.

Scientists had long suspected a big planet circled this star 12 light-years away, but not this massive or far from its star. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. These new observations show the planet orbits the star Epsilon Indi A, part of a three-star system.

An international team led by Max Planck Institute for Astronomy’s Elisabeth Matthews in Germany collected the images last year and published the findings Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Astronomers directly observed the incredibly old and cold gas giant — a rare and tricky feat — by masking the star through use of a special shading device on Webb. By blocking the starlight, the planet stood out as a pinpoint of infrared light.

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The planet and star clock in at 3.5 billion years old, 1 billion years younger than our own solar system, but still considered old and brighter than expected, according to Matthews.

The star is so close and bright to our own solar system that it’s visible with the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere.

Don’t bet on life, though.

“This is a gas giant with no hard surface or liquid water oceans,” Matthews said in an email.

It’s unlikely this solar system sports more gas giants, she said, but small rocky worlds could be lurking there.

Worlds similar to Jupiter can help scientists understand “how these planets evolve over giga-year timescales,” she said.

The first planets outside our solar system — dubbed exoplanets — were confirmed in the early 1990s. NASA’s tally now stands at 5,690 as of mid-July. The vast majority were detected via the transit method, in which a fleeting dip in starlight, repeated at regular intervals, indicates an orbiting planet.

Telescopes in space and also on the ground are on the hunt for even more, especially planets that might be similar to Earth.

Launched in 2021, NASA and the European Space Agency’s Webb telescope is the biggest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever placed in space.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

More funding for Rolls-Royce space microreactor

23 July 2024

Rolls-Royce has secured an additional GBP4.8 million (USD6.2 million) in funding from the UK Space Agency to advance the development and demonstration of key technologies in its space nuclear microreactor.

The Rolls-Royce Micro-Reactor could enable many space operations, including propulsion for satellites (Image: Rolls-Royce)

The latest award was among more than 20 national space projects to be awarded funding totalling GBP33 million under the National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP), designed to invest in high-potential technologies, drive innovation and unlock growth across the UK.

Over the next 18 months, in collaboration with academic partners from the University of Oxford and Bangor University, the Rolls-Royce project will develop the whole microreactor system design, underlying capabilities and key technologies.

"The programme will help unlock the UK's participation in the developing space nuclear power markets and clearly demonstrate the UK's capability and readiness to move towards a detailed design," Rolls-Royce said. "An initial flight demonstration is anticipated by the end of this decade."

"We are delighted to win this award from the National Space Innovation Programme and to be continuing our collaboration with the UK Space Agency," said Jake Thompson, director of Novel Nuclear & Special Projects at Rolls-Royce. "This funding is a pivotal point in our microreactor programme and will accelerate our technology progression, bringing us a step closer to powering inspiring human endeavours in space.

"The future of space exploration is greatly dependent on the ability to generate high levels of consistent power and our nuclear microreactor is the solution that will offer safe, reliable and flexible power to a broad range of space missions."

UK Space Agency CEO Paul Bate added: "The National Space Innovation Programme will help kickstart growth, create high-quality jobs, protect our planet and preserve the space environment for future generations. New projects like this one, led by Rolls-Royce, go to the heart of what we want to achieve as a national space agency that supports cutting-edge innovation, spreads opportunity across the UK and delivers the benefits of space back to citizens on Earth."

The Rolls-Royce National Space Innovation Programme will have a total project cost of GBP9.1 million and aims to progress the microreactor's overall technology readiness level, which will bring the reactor closer to a full system space flight demonstration.

This latest investment follows the announcement of GBP1.18 million awarded to Rolls-Royce from the UK Space Agency in April this year, under Phase 2 of the International Bi-Lateral Fund. This was preceded by GBP2.9 million of funding awarded in 2023 under the Lunar Surface Nuclear Power Contract and Phase 1 of the IBF project in 2023, which delivered an initial concept of a UK lunar modular nuclear reactor.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News