The event is expected to warm up the Earth temporarily.
However, it is the amount of water vapor that the eruption has sent up that has caught the attention of scientists since it can have an impact on the planet's temperature and warm it up temporarily. NASA scientists estimate that the single event has sent up 10 percent of water vapor that is already present in the atmosphere.
“We had to carefully inspect all the measurements in the plume to make sure they were trustworthy,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which designed and built the MLS instrument. Since NASA started measuring eruptions nearly two decades ago, only two eruptions, one in Alaska in 2008 and another in Chile in 2015, have managed to send up significant amounts of water. The Tonga eruption, however, has reduced these major events to mere blips.
While massive eruptions send out vast plumes of ash, dust, and gas that reflect the sunlight back into space and cool the Earth, water vapor sent out by this volcano can be expected to trap more heat and raise the surface temperatures in the short term. This additionally trapped heat, is unlikely to "noticeably exacerbate climate change effects," NASA said.
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