The eruption of the Tonga volcano in January has been confirmed as the biggest explosion ever recorded in the atmosphere by modern instrumentation.
It was far bigger than any 20th Century volcanic event, or indeed any atom bomb test conducted after WWII.
The assessment comes in a pair of scholarly papers in the journal Science that have reviewed all the data.
Of recent history, it's likely only the Krakatoa eruption of 1883 rivalled the atmospheric disturbance produced.
[Source: BBC]
