![]() ![]() Laplace based his theory on the physical equations governing atmospheric motions on a global scale. Over 200 years ago, the great French mathematician, physicist and astronomer Pierre-Simon de Laplace (opens in new tab) predicted such behavior. The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, located in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga, erupts in a massive explosion seen from space in this animation of images from NOAA's GOES West satellite on Jan. The Royal Society of London published a series of maps illustrating the wave front’s propagation in a famous 1888 report on the eruption. The wave front traveled outward from Krakatoa and was observed making at least three complete trips around the globe (opens in new tab). Communication was slower in those days, of course, but within a few years, scientists had combined the various individual observations and were able to plot on a world map the propagation of the pressure front (opens in new tab) in the hours and days after the eruption. The Krakatoa wave pulse was detected in barometric observations at locations throughout the world. The first such pressure wave that attracted scientific attention was produced by the great eruption of Mount Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883. It’s a phenomenon first theorized over 200 years ago. This eruption was so powerful it caused the atmosphere to ring like a bell, though at a frequency too low to hear. ![]() The expansion of the wave front from the Tonga eruption was a particularly spectacular example of the phenomenon of global propagation of atmospheric waves, which has been seen after other historic explosive events, including nuclear tests. I am a meteorologist (opens in new tab) who has studied the oscillations of the global atmosphere (opens in new tab) for almost four decades (opens in new tab). ![]()
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