The eruption of the Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha'apai (HTHH) volcano on January 15, 2022 injected an extremely large amount of water vapor (H$_2$O) to an altitude of 50 km. We study the distribution of the H2O cloud and its ascent into the mesosphere using observations from the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder satellite and by performing simulations of the cloud with the ICON-Seamless model. The vertical transport of the H$_2$O cloud had three phases: subsidence, stable, and rising. The temperature inside the H$_2$O cloud is colder than outside the cloud. This causes the subsidence of the H$_2$O cloud and has consequences for the transport during the next months. From October on, the transport is mainly determined by the large-scale wind patterns, but only slightly by the QBO phase. Names of the simulations in the paper and in the tarfiles are related the following: CTRL_E = Tonga2004 HTHH_E = Tonga020 CTRL_E PtFeb = Tonga022 HTHH_E PtJan = Tonga021 CTRL_E PtJan = Tonga023 HTHH_W PtFeb = Tonga026 CTRL_W PtFeb = Tonga027 Scripts and name list to run the experiments with ICON-Seamless are in one tar file.
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Niemeier, Ulrike (2023). Data provided for Niemeier et al (2023): Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai water vapor plume: How the plume impacts its transport through the stratosphere through dynamical and radiative effects. DOKU at DKRZ. https://hdl.handle.net/21.14106/a78ab16a5ca2f2446938a112c8f5b43f8719379d