One year on from the Tonga eruption
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 568 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2023
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re taking a look back at the January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, which literally sent shockwaves around the world. One year on, and we’re still uncovering what made the volcano so powerful, as well as unpacking its long lasting impacts.
Roland is joined by Professor Shane Cronin from the University of Auckland and Dr Marta Ribó from the Auckland University of Technology to share their findings from their latest trip to survey the volcano.
The impacts of the eruption weren’t just felt on Earth – they also reached all the way to space. Physicist Claire Gasque from the University of California, Berkeley, has been analysing how the eruption affected space weather.
Amongst all the material ejected by Hunga Tonga was a huge amount of water. The massive water vapour cloud is still present in our atmosphere, as Professor Simon Carn from the Michigan Technological University tells us.
The volcano also triggered tsunamis worldwide. Disaster sociologist Dr Sara McBride from the US Geological Survey has been using video footage of the event to analyse how people responded and how we can better prepare for future eruptions.
How do we stay up when we ride a bicycle? Lots of us can do it without even thinking about it, but probably very few of us can say exactly HOW we do it. Well, CrowdScience listener Arif and his children Maryam and Mohammed from India want to understand what’s going on in our heads when go for a cycle, and how we learn to do it in the first place.
Presenter Marnie Chesterton is on the case, tracking down a neuroscientist studying how our brains and bodies work together to keep us balanced whether we’re walking or trying to ride a bicycle. She learns about the quirks of bicycle engineering from researchers in the Netherlands who are part of a lab entirely devoted to answering this question. In the process falling off of some unusual bicycles and uncovering the surprising truth that physics might not yet have a proper answer. And we peer deeper into our brains to find out why some memories last longer than others, whether some people can learn quicker than others and the best way to learn a new skill.
Image Credit: Tonga Geological Services
Transcript
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| 0:29.5 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. Thank you for downloading the science hour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:35.6 | With me, Roland Pease. And for crowd science, Marnie has |
| 0:39.8 | been on quite a journey to see the latest in bike tech. We're off to the Netherlands, a country |
| 0:45.5 | famous for its cycling, where in a lab devoted to the study of bicycle engineering, we test |
| 0:51.6 | some very unusual bicycles. |
| 0:58.7 | There we go. There we go. Oh yeah. Reersuit bike. That's how you ride a rear suit bike. |
| 1:07.0 | Well, she survived unhurt, as you can hear later in the podcast. Before that, it's very nearly a year since the most dramatic geological event of 2022 literally erupted. |
| 1:19.3 | The explosive and destructive eruption of a remote volcano in the Pacific, 60 kilometres from the island of Tonga. |
| 1:28.0 | An explosive underwater volcanic eruption in the Pacific, 60 kilometres from the island of Tonga. An explosive underwater volcanic eruption in the Pacific triggers tsunami warnings across |
| 1:33.2 | a vast area, including Japan and the entire US West Coast. |
| 1:38.4 | International aid efforts are being ramped up to Tonga, we're three days on from that |
| 1:42.7 | massive undersea volcanic eruption, |
| 1:45.0 | and the tsunami that followed has cut off nearly all communications to the country. |
| 1:49.3 | Tonga's in the South Pacific, it's made up of 170 islands, 150,000 people live there, |
| 1:55.0 | and 80% of them have been affected by Saturday's eruption. |
| 1:58.3 | This is Science and Action, the first edition of 2023 with me, Roland Pease, and we're looking back to the events on the 15th of January |
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