The January event was far bigger than any 20th Century volcanic event, or indeed any atom bomb test.
Scientists now have access to an extraordinary array of ground-based and spaceborne instruments, including atmospheric pressure sensors, seismometers, hydro-phones, and a fleet of satellites that monitor the Earth across the entire light spectrum.
The network's data indicated the Tonga volcano blast produced an atmospheric pressure wave comparable with that from the biggest ever nuclear explosion - the Tsar bomb detonated by the Soviets in 1961 - but lasted four times longer. These are energetic waves in the air that propagate at the speed of sound, along a path guided by the surface of the planet. They are also non-dispersive, in other words they maintain their shape as they move and so are conspicuous over a long time.
In the UK, which is some 16,5000km from Tonga, these pulses began arriving on the evening of the 15th, about 14 hours after the climactic eruption on the other side of the planet."At the time, we had a laser cloud-base recorder looking at the cloud base and as the wave went through the cloud was perturbed," recalls Prof Giles Harrison, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Reading and co-author on one of the papers.
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