Original title: Tonga volcano eruption triggered more than 25,000 lightning strikes in 5 minutes
Researchers recently released a report showing that the Tonga volcanic eruption in mid-January 2022 not only triggered a huge tsunami, but also caused frequent lightning strikes, causing more than 25,000 lightning strikes within 5 minutes.
According to a report by CNN on January 8, a report recently released by Vaisala, a Finnish weather monitoring technology company, showed that when the underwater volcano of Tonga’s Hungaha Apai Island erupted in January last year, a large amount of water vapor was sent into the earth’s atmosphere. , causing frequent lightning.
According to the report, the eruption in Tonga triggered 25,500 lightning strikes in five minutes and nearly 400,000 lightning strikes in six hours. The report said that when Tonga’s eruption was at its strongest, half of all lightning events worldwide were concentrated in the vicinity of the volcano.
Vaisala meteorologist and lightning expert Chris Vajasky said that they have tracked lightning events around the world for 40 years, and this is the “most extreme” lightning concentration ever detected.
2022 is an “extreme” year in terms of lightning events happening around the world, the report said. For example, the United States will record more than 198 million lightning strikes in 2022, 4 million more than 2021 and 28 million more than 2020.
Lightning usually occurs only when the air is relatively warm and humid, so lightning occurs more often in summer in the tropics and elsewhere. The frequency of lightning strikes, which usually signal warmer temperatures, has become a key indicator for researchers to measure the severity of the climate crisis. The trend toward more lightning strikes has continued unabated in recent years, Vajasky said.
Robert Holdsworth, a researcher at the Global Lightning Location Network at the University of Washington in the United States, said that whether it is the lightning caused by the Tonga volcano or the global lightning trend, their research results are consistent with the above-mentioned reports.