News about the massive volcanic eruption near Tonga in the west Pacific continues to make waves around the world thanks to science and social media.
On Wednesday, the Gemini Observatory, part of the National Science Foundation’s NOIR Lab located atop Hawaii’s Maunakea tweeted a video showing a visible pressure wave triggered by the eruption traveling through the upper part of the atmosphere.
When you watch the video below, look for a faint, reddish ripple in each of the angles. The brighter white streaks appear to be waves as well, but those are more typical high-level clouds.
According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, the pressure wave was traveling at approximately 600 mph, close to the speed of sound. Weather observing stations all over the U.S. detected the pressure wave as it moved from west to east on Saturday morning.
The eruption also produced a more literal wave, of course, the tsunami that traversed the Pacific Saturday morning. The energy from the eruption very quickly displaced ocean water and sent it outward from the eruption site. The tsunami reached the California coast several hours later.
Watch video above: Surfers evacuate California beach as tsunami hits Central Coast
The video from the Gemini Observatory shows how water-like our atmosphere is. It’s made of countless gas particles, but it behaves very much like a fluid in the way it circulates. The volcanic eruption was an extreme visualization of how energy can travel through all of those air particles, but a more muted and everyday example is weather systems. These “waves” of high and low-pressure form, strengthen and move around the globe helping to transfer energy in the form of wind and precipitation.
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