Characteristics of Volcanic Lightning Distribution Generated by Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai on January 15th, 2022

    Existing literature indicates that volcanic lightning occurs during a devastating volcano eruption. However, it is still limited to understanding the volcanic electrification mechanism in nature because of the rarity of the explosive volcano eruption and visible spectrum obstacles from plumes full of dirty ashes. The eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai (HT-HH) submarine volcanoes in the Lau Basin, South Pacific, had an extremely violate surtseyan type eruption on January 15^th and generated numerous volcanic lightning. This eruption event provides a great opportunity to explore the electrification and evolution of volcanic lightning. 

    In this work, more than 40,000 lightning events were detected by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) during the primary eruption on January 15^th. At the first stage of the eruption, the geographic distribution of lightning strikes expanded rapidly and isotropically while the eruption column reached a specific altitude. Then a lightning tranquility period occurred subsequently, implying explosive erupting was intermittent. Several explosive sub-eruptions were detected from 04:00Z to 07:00Z, and sub-eruptions' timestamps are highly consistent with seismic data analysis from IRIS. Lightning footprint provided evidence that the HT-HH eruption was a surtseyan eruption unsteady with several quiescent phases separating the explosive stages.

    HT-HH is one of the most powerful eruptions of the 21^st century and provides a favorable environment for volcanic lightning research. The result of this work can track the immediate eruption by using lightning activities. Moreover, volcanic lightning has a different charging mechanism than general tropospheric lightning. Therefore, many interesting issues can be discussed, such as the volcano eruption's contribution to global electrical circuits or whether volcanic lightning can generate other atmospheric electricity events like TLEs or TGFs.