Aerosol dynamic processes in the Hunga plume in January 2022: does water vapor accelerate aerosol aging?

Bruckert, Julia; Chopra, Simran; Siddans, Richard; Wedler, Charlotte; Hoshyaripour, Gholam Ali

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-9859-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-9859-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-9859-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 17

Research article

|

05 Sep 2025

Research article |

| 05 Sep 2025

Aerosol dynamic processes in the Hunga plume in January 2022: does water vapor accelerate aerosol aging?

Julia Bruckert, Simran Chopra, Richard Siddans, Charlotte Wedler, and Gholam Ali Hoshyaripour

Data sets

ICON release 2024.10 ICON partnership https://doi.org/10.35089/WDCC/IconRelease2024.10

Research data for 'Aerosol dynamic processes in the Hunga plume in January 2022: Does water vapor accelerate aerosol aging? J. Bruckert https://doi.org/10.35097/fycaak96rayzvcac

CALIPSO Lidar Level 1B profile data, V4-11 NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC https://doi.org/10.5067/CALIOP/CALIPSO/CAL_LID_L1-Standard-V4-11

OMPS/NPP PCA SO$_{2}$ Total Column 1-Orbit L2 Swath $50 \times 50$\,km V2 C. Li et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/SO2/DATA205

IMS/IASI sulfate aerosol optical depth (SAOD) data R. Siddans https://gws-access.jasmin.ac.uk/public/rsg_share/transfer/ims/

Short summary

The 2022 Hunga eruption emitted about 150 Tg of water vapor into the stratosphere. Here, we show that the water vapor injection not only accelerates SO₂ oxidation and sulfate production but also increases the aging of ash (coating of ash by sulfate). Our study shows that aerosol aging alone does not explain the rapid loss of ash after the Hunga eruption as observed by satellite instruments. However, some ash might be masked in the observation due to the strong coating.