Observed Atmospheric Features for the 2022 Hunga Tonga Volcanic Eruption from Joint Polar Satellite System Science Data Products

Abstract

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) mission has provided over ten years of high-quality data products for environment forecasting and monitoring through the current Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites. Particularly, the sensor data record (SDR) and the derived environmental data record (EDR) products from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), and the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) offer an unprecedented opportunity to observe severe weather and environmental events over the Earth. This paper presents the observations about atmospheric features of the Hunga Tonga Volcanic eruption of January 2022, e.g., the gravity wave, volcanic cloud, and aerosol (sulfate) plume phenomena, by using the ATMS, CrIS, OMPS, and VIIRS SDR and EDR products. Powerful gravity waves ringing through the atmosphere after the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano are discovered at two CrIS upper sounding channels (670 cm−1 and 2320 cm−1) in the deviations of the observed brightness temperature (O) from the simulated baseline brightness temperature (B) using the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM), i.e., O—B. A similar pattern is also observed in the ATMS global maps at channel 15, whose peak weighting function is around 40 km, showing the atmospheric disturbance caused by the eruption that reached 40 km above the surface. The Tonga volcanic cloud (plume) was also captured by the OMPS SO2 EDR product. The gravity wave features were also captured in the native resolution image of the S-NPP VIIRS I-5 band nighttime observations. In addition, the VIIRS Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) captured and tracked the volcanic aerosol (sulfate) plume successfully. These discoveries demonstrate the scientific potential of the JPSS SDR and EDR products in monitoring and tracking the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano and its severe environmental impacts. This paper presents the atmospheric features of the Hunga Tonga volcano eruption that is uniquely captured by all four advanced sensors onboard JPSS satellites, with different spectral coverages and spatial resolutions.