Large Amounts of Water Vapor Were Injected into the Stratosphere by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Volcano Eruption

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai (Tonga) injected only small amount of SO2 into the stratosphere, while our analyses of the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) measurements show that a massive amount of water vapor was directly injected into the stratosphere by the Tonga eruption, which is probably due to its submarine volcanic activity. The Tonga eruption injected a total amount of 139 +/- 8 Tg of water vapor into the stratosphere and resulted in an increase of 8.9 +/- 0.5% in the global stratospheric water vapor. Analyses also show that the uppermost altitude impacted by Tonga reached the 1 hPa level (similar to 47.6 km). Additionally, the maximum hydration region for increased water vapor is at 38-17 hPa (similar to 22.2-27 km), where the water vapor mixing ratio increased by 6-8 ppmv during the three months after the Tonga eruption. The enhanced stratospheric water vapor has great potential to influence the global radiation budget as well as ozone loss.