The underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted on January 15, 2022, injecting volcanic gases and aerosols into the stratosphere. This study synthesizes observations to investigate stratospheric aerosol and water vapor perturbations and quantifies the radiative impact using radiative transfer modeling. The eruption caused the largest global perturbation of stratospheric aerosols since Pinatubo (1991) and the largest stratospheric water vapor perturbation in the satellite era. Initially, water vapor radiative cooling dominated, but after two weeks, water vapor heating led to net warming of the climate system.

P. Sellitto, A. Podglajen, R. Belhadji, M. Boichu, E. Carboni, J. Cuesta, C. Duchamp, C. Kloss, R. Siddans, N. Bègue, L. Blarel, F. Jegou, S. Khaykin, J.-B. Renard, B. Legras