James Anderson
Harvard University, MA·Earth & Environmental Science
In 2022 the undersea Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted. Unusually, it blasted large amounts of water vapor high into the stratosphere, the atmospheric layer that holds the ozone layer.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Chemistry
- Topics
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai
volcanic eruption
stratosphere
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Determine how much water vapor from the 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption remains in the stratosphere and how its spread over time, altitude and latitude reveals stratospheric air circulation.
- Quantify ozone loss at midlatitudes, the tropics and the poles after the eruption, and separate the role of chemical reactions from that of air movement.
- Identify which stratospheric chemical changes are driven by added sulfate particles, by added water vapor or by both, and why particle-surface chemistry responded so strongly to little sulfur dioxide.
- Assess how the stratosphere has recovered since the eruption and whether the extra water vapor could cause record-setting polar ozone holes.
More about the research
The ozone layer shields life from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This project tracks what the eruption is doing to stratospheric chemistry, temperature and air movement, both in the short term and over years. The aim is to understand how large eruptions can damage the ozone layer.
Why it matters
Damage to the ozone layer raises exposure to harmful solar UV radiation, which affects human health. This work provides timely information on whether the Hunga Tonga eruption could deepen ozone loss, including possible record polar ozone holes. It focuses on the Northern Hemisphere, where most people live, and could improve how future volcanic risks to the ozone layer are assessed.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Test how important supersaturation is in setting stratospheric humidity, using balloon-borne Vaisala RS41 and tunable diode laser moisture sensors that previously recorded relative humidities above 150% in the tropical tropopause layer.
Da Yang
University of California-Davis, CA·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Test whether vapor buoyancy, the lift that moist air gets from water vapor's light molecular mass, warms the dry regions of the tropical atmosphere, using satellite observations and numerical simulations.
Rodney Weber
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify how the switch to lower-sulfur fuel oil changes wintertime PM2.5 sulfate, hydroxymethanesulfonate and related sulfur species in Fairbanks, Alaska, using real-time monitoring instruments.
The school
Harvard University: 42 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 712 research doctorates a year.
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