Pressure spikes were reported by weather stations all around the world, including in China, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. Watch as the Tonga volcano unleashed once-in-a-century planetary shockwave.
A visually stunning depiction of how an underwater volcano adjacent o tthe Pacific island country of Tonga burst in January, unleashing a once-in-a-generation planet wide shockwave.
Ángel Amores, a physical oceanographer at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Majorca, Spain, created the shockwave simulation, which was published in the New York Times.
Amores first noticed the shockwave after seeing the wave’s radar signature while analyzing data from local weather stations. When the shockwave hit, he claimed, dramatic pressure shifts were seen at meteorological stations all over the world.
“Then I was waiting and I said, OK, it should take like 36 hours to come back … And then it passed again. After another 36 hours it passed a third time.
“This is the first time that I see something like that,” he said.
The shockwave, according to Peter W. Brown, a physicist at the University of Western Ontario, traversed the globe multiple times at the velocity of sound. The occurrence was “super spectacular.” he stated.
“Everybody who studies atmospheric waves are all quite, I would say, awe-struck,” Brown said.
Here’s a map showing weather stations across Japan that experienced an increase in air pressure as the shockwave approached.
Pressure spikes were reported by weather stations all around the world, including in China, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. “The shockwave caused small disturbances in local atmospheric properties such as the temperature of water vapor, creating faint ripples that could be seen in satellite images.” the New York Times said.
So, what will cause the next planetary shockwave? Is it going to be another volcanic eruption, an asteroid, or a nuclear weapon?
