NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 2022 HUNGA TONGA–HUNGA HAʻAPAI ERUPTION AND TSUNAMI

Abstract

 In January 2022, a massive eruption of a submarine volcano near the Tongan Islands triggered a tsunami of more than 10 meters high that reached the Tongan islands. There are many submarine volcanoes in the sea around Japan. In the future, tsunamis may arrive in coastal areas of Japan as in the present event. Therefore, it is necessary to study the mechanism of tsunamis generated by eruptions of submarine volcanoes. In previous studies, propagation calculations were performed using the water surface after the eruption as the initial wave source. In this study, we simulated the movement of water during an eruption using three-dimensional calculations to investigate the difference from the methods of previous studies and compared them with the trace height data obtained from field surveys. The inundation calculations showed good agreement with the observed data in some areas.