Numerical Simulation of Tsunami Impact From the 1/15/22 Eruption of the Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai Volcano

Abstract

Tsunamis from volcanic ‘explosive’ eruptions are rare, with the last catastrophic event being Krakatau in 1883 (Verbeek, 1885), during which, tsunamis were generated in the far-field by pressure shock-waves and in the nearfield of the volcano, in the Sunda Straits, by several potential geological mechanisms including pyroclastic flows, ash column, and/or caldera collapse. On 1/22/55, at about 4:15 UTC, a one in 1,000 year eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’a-pai Volcano (HTHHV), that had started on12/20/21, reached its paroxysm with a series of large underwater explosions, releasing enormous energy (4-18 Mt of TNT), and ejecting a large ash plume 58 km into the stratosphere. We simulate both the near- and far-field tsunami generation from the eruption, but in this paper we focus on analyzing and validating the near-field impact against field data.